


Miss Rosewater's School For Young Witches

by Erato_Muse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: All girls school, Best Friends, Boarding School, Coming of Age, F/M, Ginny Weasley at an all girl's school, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Post-Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Pureblood Politics (Harry Potter), Pureblood Society (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:08:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 38,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25794148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erato_Muse/pseuds/Erato_Muse
Summary: Following the traumatic events of the Chamber of Secrets, Ginny Weasley is transferred to a small school for young witches, Miss Rosewater's School. Ginny chafes under the restrictive regime and charm school curriculum, and misses Hogwarts, but makes friends with a shy, kind girl called Phoebe who is socially outcast for being the daughter of the infamous Sirius Black. Ginny and Phoebe break rules, start unofficial school houses and all girl's Quidditch team, learn the Patronus Charm, and as Voldemort rises again,  they get pulled into the intrigues of the Order of the Phoenix and the Golden Trio.  Phoebe connects with her father and falls for Bill Weasley, while Ginny and Harry rediscover each other after time apart.
Relationships: Bill Weasley/Original Female Character(s), Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Sirius Black/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started thinking, since Ginny is so different in HBP, what if Harry is just noticing because she was away at another school for a while? She'll return to Hogwarts around OotP. Writing the changes to the plot is going to be a fun challenge!

“Mummy, can we take the train to Auntie Muriel’s?” Ginny Weasley asked, looking up at her mother.  
Her chest became tight as she did so, in anticipation of putting her mother in a bad mood. Molly Weasley’s moods changed quickly. Her annoyance could roll in suddenly after hours of a fond, sweet, affectionate mood, like thunder clouds blanketing a blue summer afternoon sky.  
She didn’t yell, as she often did at Fred and George when they were playing tricks, but her face did squeeze into a furrowed frown, and her brown eyes that were the same as Ginny’s were shiny with outrage.  
“Train?!” she sputtered. “What train?! I don’t have the time to change out our money for the Muggle kind, and even if I did, I wouldn’t spend an afternoon on a Muggle train, unable to breathe and to act natural! That’s your father, Muggles on the brain. We’re taking the Knight Bus, and that’s final!”  
“Yes, Mummy,” Ginny said, cowed, and looked down at the hardwood floor of her room, and the shoes under her bed.  
She felt sadness, swollen and gray, in the pit of her stomach. She should have known not to ask for anything special. That was the first lesson of being a Weasley. Birthdays and Christmas, school shopping-all the occasions that involved money being spent on gifts were preceded by months of being reminded, ‘Don’t expect anything fancy, with your father’s salary.’ Ginny’s dad never said so, himself-her mother reminded everyone loudly and forcefully enough. If her mother splurged and made Ginny a new dress, her smile wide and her eyes shining with affection near to awe at her only daughter, Ginny hardly enjoyed it: Ron glared at her for getting something brand new, that took time and effort, even if it had nothing to do with him.  
But, when Ginny thought of her one year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, all she could think of was the ride on the Hogwarts Express. She had never been on a train before, and she had loved the sound of its wheels, and the way the scenery peeled by: the flat green countryside gradually turned into craggy mountainscapes, and the silver gleam of the waters of still fjords beneath precariously high bridges. It was the best part of that terrible year, and only the good memories of the train ride remained. She had forgotten the faces of the girls who she had tried to start conversation with, until they left her sitting in the train compartment all alone. She had never known their names. She remembered only the green valleys, black mountains, and silver lakes.  
Her mother’s face softened with guilt.  
“I’m so sorry, my love,” she said. “Mummy loses her temper sometimes, doesn’t she?”  
Ginny ignored the baby talk. Maybe mothers never quite accepted that one was 12, and ergo not a baby anymore.  
“I just want everything to go perfectly today,” Molly said.  
“I won’t mess up, Mummy. I know I was stupid for trusting that diary. I just wanted someone to talk to. Ron and Percy and Fred and George have their own friends, and…girls don’t like me,” Ginny said.  
“Nonsense! When girls are your age, sweetheart, they make their best friends for life!” Molly said cheerfully, with that wistful look that meant she was thinking of something from her own youth.  
“Where are your friends for life, Mummy?” Ginny asked.  
“Well, you know, when a young woman gets married…and then children come…you don’t have the same kind of time on your hands. But, you send letters, holiday cards…look in on each other if, when you find yourselves in each other’s neighborhood. I’ve had my hands full, that’s all. Then, the war…” Molly said. “But, Ginny, no one blames you for the diary! Lucius Malfoy was trying to discredit your father, and played a nasty, bad, dirty trick on all our family, using you.”  
This did not arouse Ginny’s curiosity quite so much. Everyone in the Wizarding World knew that the Malfoys were the worst sort, even those who were too afraid to say so.  
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it was, Mummy. Everyone blames me, anyway! And no one wants to talk to me,” Ginny said.  
Her stomach seemed to fill with anguish, bloated and painful. Her mother watched her, as if afraid she would cry, and Ginny caught herself. She was teaching herself not to cry, so that she didn’t upset anyone, or her brothers didn’t think she was soft or tease her.  
“I know, dear. People can be unfair, when they hear a bad story about someone, they believe it, even when its not true, or not that person’s fault. That’s why this visit is so important, today,” Molly said.  
“Why, Mummy?” Ginny asked.  
Molly sighed, and her face looked serious, and she seemed to be drawing strength from her large bosom.  
“We always hoped that Auntie Muriel would…do something for you, Ginny. You’re the only girl, and…well, she has never been very fond of little boys. She thought my brothers were perfect beasts, when we were children! I was her favorite…and, of course, its not right to have favorites, but…she’s the sort to know her own mind, and stick to it, and woe betide anyone who tries to change it. But, if she’s fond of you, she’s very loyal, very generous,” Molly said.  
“And, you want Auntie Muriel to like me?” Ginny said.  
Molly seemed relieved that Ginny was catching on so quickly.  
“Yes! And, if she does, today is a new beginning, to put the Chamber of Secrets behind you,” Molly said.  
“How?” Ginny said.  
She didn’t think she would ever forget how she felt when she woke up in that cold, dark, wet stone chamber, that smelled like time and neglect, wet earth and empty space. Harry’s green eyes nearly glowed in the darkness of the chamber, he was covered in blood, holding a sword, and there was a huge, snake on the ground before them. As Ginny took in its limp head, open and empty eyes, and the pink gashes of wounded flesh along its body, she realized it was dead, and she was terrified. So scared she couldn’t scream.  
“You won’t be going back to Hogwarts this year, Ginny,” Molly said.  
“No! Mummy, please! I don’t want to stay home alone again, like when Ron went before me! Please!” she said frantically, feeling desperate for her mother to listen to her and understand how important Hogwarts was to her.  
She had always wanted to go. Twice every year, all her life, they had gone shopping at Diagon Alley in London, and then to King’s Cross for brothers to board the scarlet Hogwarts Express, and then months later to pick them up and take them home. They came home with stories of life in the castle: the ceiling that reflected the sky and floating candles in the Great Hall, the portraits that talked and moved, the staircases that moved and changed directions abruptly, the Quidditch games, the beasts of the Forbidden Forest, the professors, Dumbledore, who had defeated the dark wizard Grindelwald in his youth, mean Professor Snape, strict Professor McGonagall, whimsical Professor Flitwick, and the rest. Ginny had imagined it all in her head, with excitement and detail, and sometimes longing that felt like loneliness. As if she and the school had been parted and must be reunited.  
She’d thought she’d known exactly how her life there was going to go. She wanted to have lots of friends, get good grades at everything, even Potions, and play Quidditch.  
But, the minute she boarded the train, something had seemed off. Nothing was as she expected. She had never been around so many other children before! In all her fantasies of having lots of friends, she had never worked out just how you start friendships. Ron’s best friend was the most famous wizard in the world, a brave boy and a hero, who also had beautiful lips and eyes, Harry Potter, and a smart Muggleborn girl called Hermione Granger. But, he never said how they had started being friends.  
When girls sat in her compartment, she decided that starting off as simply as possible should be good enough, and greeted them with a bright smile, and cheerful, “Hi! I’m Ginny Weasley!”  
They looked at her, puzzled, in silence, for excruciating seconds that seemed to last hours, with stares that pierced Ginny through, as if she had said something odd, and in turn they said nothing. She tried again and again to start conversation: asking them questions about what house they hoped to be placed in, if any of their families before went to Hogwarts, and telling them things her brothers had told her about it, and when those things didn’t work, drawing their attentions to interesting features of the view out the window. Finally the two girls stood united in their silence and left the compartment. She heard their laughter as they walked away.  
Then, there was Tom…Tom who listened, and helped her with her schoolwork, and never made fun of her…  
But, still, she wanted another chance! That was why Ginny had been so good all summer, even helping her mother cook without complaint even though she hated the heavy lifting and burnt hands, and serving her brothers like some kind of Biblical slave girl. She needed her parents, especially her nervous, overprotective, easily angered mother, to believe that she was okay, ready and able to go back to Hogwarts.  
“Mummy, please! Everyone else has gone there. Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron. Why do I have to stay home? Why?” Ginny said.  
“Stop whining! Stop it!” Molly said, balling her fists, her face turning red.  
After several deep breaths, she willed her face back into a mask of calm. There was a banging sound, like her brothers were using some kind of Charm, then Ron yelled, “Mum!” as if he was their illegal magic’s target-or, maybe he was just spooked. Ron had inherited their mother’s nervous temperament. Ginny was used to being shouted at, but she still flinched.  
“RONALD! DON’T SHOUT FOR ME ACROSS THE HOUSE, JUST COME TALK TO ME! FREDERICK! GEORGE! WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING, STOP IT THIS INSTANT!” Molly bellowed, and Ginny’s ears rang.  
Molly turned back to Ginny, and said, “Dear, you won’t be staying home! We’re hoping that Auntie Muriel will pay for you to go to a new school.”  
She used That voice…the way she spoke when she was trying to make something sound fun, when it wasn’t, or just as good as what you really wanted, which was too expensive. Whatever her mother wanted her to believe in such instances was usually not true, and Ginny knew that she, her mother, knew that deep down. Why did adults lie? They either tried to trick you into believing one thing was another, or they left out important details.  
“But, Hogwarts is free!” Ginny pointed out.  
Surely her mother, who probably had nightmares about money, for all she talked about it as it was either as life sustaining as water or the most nefarious force this side of Voldemort, would be swayed by this. Money, money, money…Ginny hated the subject, altogether.  
“I know that, Ginevra,” Molly said, with a tone of strained patience Ginny did not feel she deserved. After all, she wasn’t blowing things up, like Fred and George.  
But, she had done worse than they ever had. Fred and George liked magical experiments. They did things adults would call bad, but out of fun and curiosity. They had never tried to kill three people with a basilisk. Ginny felt far less angry at her mother, because she didn’t feel she deserved to. She knew she had to shut up and listen-she had done a terrible thing.  
“But, Hogwarts…its not for a girl like you, and I should have seen that. Its too big, too full of old magic, and your brothers are very involved in school life. Fred and George are on the Quidditch team, Percy is a Prefect…I should have known that they didn’t have time to look after you,” Molly said, as if thinking out loud.  
Ginny wanted to say so badly that she could look after herself…but, that wasn’t true. She didn’t know how to make friends, she had talked to a book that could write back, and she had let it posses her and make her do bad things, terrible things. What did it say about her, that her only friend was Voldemort? She must be a terrible person to make friends with the worst wizard that had ever lived, the person who’d ordered the murders of Harry Potter’s parents, and her own uncles, who had died in the war. People thought she was a little girl, who didn’t understand…she did understand, and she knew what right and wrong were. She knew that she had been wrong, and she was so wrong and knew it so thoroughly that she was scared of herself. She second guessed all that she said or did, and tried to control the worst things about herself: talking back to her mother, crying when she was upset, and she didn’t want to think bad thoughts about anyone, either.  
What if that was why the basilisk had picked Penelope, Hermione, and Colin? Tom lived in her mind, he knew that she was annoyed that Percy couldn’t answer her questions because he was always with his stupid girlfriend, that Colin Creevey was always crowding around Harry Potter so that she couldn’t get a chance to try and talk to him, and…Hermione.  
Everything about Hermione had made her feel small and useless. She was so good at magic, she knew all sorts of things and always had an answer, and she was Harry’s best friend. He had probably told her all about what it had been like to face down Voldemort when he was just a baby, and to witness his parents’ murder, and to live in the Muggle world. She must know everything about him, and she obviously didn’t feel like she had swallowed cottonblossoms and they were clogging her mouth, throat, and stomach when he was around, the way that Ginny did.  
It couldn’t be a mistake that the basilisk picked the people Ginny wished would go away when she needed or wanted to talk to someone. She felt like if she thought a bad thing about someone, Tom would come back and hurt them.  
“You need a different sort of environment,” Molly said. “There’s a school in Bath, just for girls. It’s a very, very nice place…but, its rather expensive. Auntie Muriel can help with that.”  
“If she likes me,” Ginny said.  
“Yes!” Molly said eagerly.  
“Is it as good as Hogwarts?” Ginny asked.  
“It’s a school that turns little girls into young ladies,” Molly said. “girls from the best families go there!”  
Ginny tried with all her might to hide how uninspired she was. ‘Turns little girls into young ladies’? It sounded like she would be wearing a white dress and eating pink cake all day. Or, learning how to waltz. Plus, no school like that could possibly have a Headmaster like Dumbledore, who had fought dark wizards and was over 100 years old. Everyone knew wizards grew more powerful with age. Maybe he’d live forever and just disappear into parts unknown, like Merlin.  
“I know you always wanted to go to Hogwarts. But, sometimes, the things we want are bad for us,” Molly said.  
“Hogwarts wasn’t bad for me. I think I was bad for Hogwarts, Mummy,” Ginny said.  
Her mother looked sad, and pulled Ginny against her big, soft bosom in a big hug.  
“This will be good for you, Ginny,” Molly said, when she let her go. “But, you have to help me, today. Be a good little girl.”  
Ginny nodded. She accepted that she had lost her chance at Hogwarts. She felt like that was only fair, and for the best: maybe it was safer without her.  
“Good, good!” Molly said, smiling with pride and joy, the way she did when Ginny acted like the daughter she wanted: the little girl who liked cooking, dresses, was quiet, sweet, and believed everything that Molly said. “Now, lets get ready for the Bus!”  
Ginny stood up. Molly waved her wand, and Ginny looked down. She was no longer wearing her pajamas, but a navy blue taffeta dress with a big, poofy skirt, with an itchy crinoline petticoat beneath it, and a white eyelet cotton lace pinafore over it, puffy sleeves, and lace trimmed socks on her feet which were tucked into shiny Mary Janes like she had worn with her Hogwarts school uniform.  
With another wave of her wand, Ginny’s fiery red hair looked longer, sleeker, and she was wearing a blue bow that matched her dress.  
“Mummy, is any of this real, or is it magic?” Ginny asked.  
“It doesn’t matter, as long as Auntie Muriel likes you enough to do something for you,” Molly said, and she was looking at Ginny with satisfaction, the way she looked at dinner when it was just prepared, the table had been set, and her brothers hadn’t stormed the kitchen, yet.  
Ginny didn’t feel like herself. But, she hadn’t for a very long time, anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

“Ginny…that’s your third spill!” Molly said, as they all ate their apple turnovers, bacon, eggs, and orange juice at breakfast.   
Ginny looked down with shame at the juice spill on the white cotton lace. Molly waved her wand, and cleaned the spill away. She also Transfigured the juice in Ginny’s glass to water. Ginny burned with embarrassment. Ron had attended two years of Hogwarts without making friends with Voldemort-In-Your-Pocket: Ginny couldn’t even manage a glass of water.  
“Auntie Muriel’s taking us to tea! What am I going to do with her, Arthur?” Molly appealed to Ginny’s dad.  
“Even Auntie Muriel knows that children spill things,” he said. He always said nice things…Ginny didn’t know whether nice things were always true, and, ergo, if her father’s opinion could be trusted.  
Her brothers weren’t paying Ginny or her date with Auntie Muriel any attention. Fred was telling Ron a scary story.  
“Oh, yeah, it was a ghastly awful mess. All they talked of in the news for months. Because new details kept leaking out, you see. They’d find new bits of the Muggles he blew up in the sewers, or stuck to the sides of buildings, and they had to be scraped off…” Fred was saying, as Ron looked paler and paler.  
“An arm here, a leg there, a spleen, a heart, entrails…” George said in a blasé tone.   
“Entrails?!” Ron said, loud enough for Molly to take notice.  
“What the Devil are you talking about down there?!” Molly snapped, and banged her fist on the table.   
Ginny’s sausages leapt off her plate, and landed in a greasy spill in her lap. She was scared to ask her mother to Scourgify the evidence of another spill. She must have looked visibly frightened, because her father gave her his soft, comforting look that made her feel like everything would soon be all right, and waved his wand. The greasy spot was gone, and the sausages had turned into a posy of apple blossoms.  
“Something for your hair,” Arthur said. “That bow’s a little too big. Like a television antenna!”  
Ginny laughed, and said, “Thank you, Daddy!”  
Fred was answering Molly, “I was just giving Ron a little History of Magic lesson. He asked me just what heinous, egregious crime Sirius Black had committed, and I was just filling him in on the particulars.”  
“I just bet you were, Frederick! Look at your little brother! Do you think scaring him silly is a good laugh?!” Molly fumed.  
“I’m not silly!” Ron said, but her gaze never left Fred.  
“There is nothing funny about murdering innocent Muggles! I don’t want to hear any more of that talk! Your uncles were Aurors. They spent their whole lives trying to make sure wizards like Sirius Black never see the light of day again, and rot in Azkaban where they belong! They died fighting Death Eater trash like that! You should be ashamed of yourself!” Molly raged.  
Fred and George lost their bright eyes and smirking smiles, full of fun and secrets, and looked down at their plates.  
“Going back to Hogwarts, this year, boys…try your best to behave, and listen to your Professors and your Prefects. With Dementors on the grounds, you’ll have to take care, more care than usual,” Arthur said patiently.  
“Daddy, why did the Law Enforcement Department put Dementors around Hogwarts? Why would an escaped murderer like Sirius Black want to hurt anyone at Hogwarts?” Ginny said.   
She couldn’t help but to have noticed the pictures of the scary looking wizard on the front page of the Daily Prophet, snarling and gnashing in a mugshot, beneath the caption: ‘Have You Seen This Wizard’? He certainly looked like what you would expect one of Voldemort’s followers to look like: black hair that fell in his face, but enough of that face visible to show an inhuman fury, his mouth twisted as it bellowed the furious nonsense of madness, and tattoos on his hands.   
“Don’t you dare answer that, Arthur!” Molly said.  
“Don’t worry, Ginny. The Death Eaters are all in hiding, and people who are scattered can’t effectively communicate and plan. Black might want to attack Hogwarts because Voldemort, his master, hated Dumbledore so much, but he won’t have any help. The Dementors will catch him, and put him right back in Azkaban,” Percy said.   
Like their mother, Percy’s tone of voice always suggested that he was right and making perfect sense that couldn’t be argued with. It used to make Ginny feel safe…but, safe felt like a small, silly toy word after she had seen the Chamber of Secrets.   
“I’m so ashamed to be related to that…that…scoundrel!” Molly burst out. “And to think, everyone felt so sorry for him, after his mother kicked him out that way, when he was just a boy! Imagine what she must have seen in him, even then…And then that sweet little wife of his, dying so young from a Blood Malediction...wasted sympathy on him, we all did...He was rotten to the core, all along...”  
Ginny felt the way she did when she heard people whispering about her after she came out of St. Mungo’s, at the end of the school year, like her very soul was squirming and wanted to jump out of her skin, like she was on a stage and had forgotten her act. If Sirius Black was bad even when he was a boy, could it happen that way for her, too?   
Like him, she had served Lord Voldemort, and hurt people. Not Muggles, but Muggleborns. They were related, her and the murderer. Ginny had the same fiery red hair and brown freckles against rosy skin as the rest of her family, but she looked again at the man on the front page of the Daily Prophet. What if, beneath her skin, she was more like him than anyone at the breakfast table with her?  
Ginny lifted the edge of the newspaper, slowly opening its pages, and her mother slapped her hand away.   
“Don’t, Ginny!” she said.  
Ron’s rat, Scabbers, ran across the table, seized the newspaper in his teeth, and scampered down the hall. Everyone was stunned.  
“I rather thought he had died, and you were carrying him around anyway out of denial,” George told Ron.  
“Don’t be daft,” Ron said.  
“Daft is a preferable state to sanity, ten to one,” Fred said. 

Ron wasn’t witty, like the twins, and didn’t even to try to come up with a retort.   
“Well, Scabbers has finally recovered from the Egyptian sun, at least!” Arthur said.  
It was true, their vacation to visit Bill at the pyramids hadn’t agreed with Ron’s half- dead rat. Ginny had written about the ancient ruins of Luxor and the pyramids of the Valley of the Kings in her new journal (which didn't write back) in as much detail as she could. It was the most beautiful, grand, mysterious and magical thing she had ever seen, and she couldn’t believe how deep the tunnels beneath the ancient city and the city of the dead were. They weren’t like the Chamber of Secrets, wet and scary dark: they were secret-holding dark.   
“Does that mean I can’t get a new familiar? Harry has an owl,” Ron wheedled.  
“We know Harry has an owl, idiot: he hasn’t been sending his letters by pixie,” George said.  
She had vaguely thought that Harry might write to her, too, to ask how she was doing after the chamber, or ask after her in his letters to Ron. Her mother had consoled her,   
“He still does a lot of things the Muggle way, dear, that’s how he was brought up, and they have different customs. But, he’s a sweet boy, he’ll be all right in time.”  
That didn’t explain why he had forgotten about her.   
Ginny heard a thunderous, rhythmic sound from the dirt drive that led to their door, and looked out the kitchen window.  
“What the Devil…” her mother murmured, got out of her chair, and went to the kitchen counter to look out the window.  
In the drive stood a modestly sized carriage, pulled by two horses that each had eight legs, manned by a driver in a tailed black coat, tophat, and spats tucked into long boots.   
“I told Auntie Muriel we would take the Knight Bus!” Molly groaned in annoyance.  
“She’s just trying to be kind,” Arthur assured her.  
“This is embarrassing! We can afford the bloody bus, Arthur, we’re not destitute!” Molly said.  
“So, I can get an owl?” Ron asked.  
“NOT RIGHT NOW!” Molly roared at him over her shoulder. “Ginny, come along, we have to leave now,” she added in a breathless sigh.  
“Accio, hat! Accio, handbag!” Molly cast, waving her wand, and her hat flew onto her head, and her purse slid onto her extended arm.   
She beckoned for Ginny, who was taking nothing but herself to this important interview with Auntie Muriel. She quickly took off the bow and tucked some apple blossoms into her hair, sharing a smile with her father. Molly waved her hand faster, urging Ginny to go, quickly, and Ginny rushed to her mother’s side. Her mother placed her hand on the small of Ginny’s back and prodded her out the kitchen door, but Arthur called behind them,   
“Molly, dear! Your shoes!”   
The boys roared with laughter, but Molly silenced it with a glare as she slipped her leather kitten heeled pumps on. She spun around and grabbed Ginny’s hand, holding onto her hat which was slipping from the sheer momentum of her rushing, and they walked to Auntie Muriel’s carriage.   



	3. Chapter 3

Phoebe Stella Pomeroy wished that she had a best friend. The kind who was like a sister. The kind who knew all her secrets, if she ever chanced to do, overhear, or become embroiled in anything that necessitated secrecy, whom she was comfortable enough with to quarrel, but always forgave and was forgiven by, with whom she could jump rope, play those sorts of games wherein girls slapped hands, jumped up and down holding hands when something was exciting, and, maybe, occasionally, played dolls. She still aesthetically liked a finely sculpted porcelain doll…but, at 13,going on 14, she wanted a friend more than a new toy.   
However, Phoebe also didn’t want to return to school; the two desires were directly opposed to each other. In books-which filled the time so adequately, Phoebe sometimes completely forgot her desire for a friend-boys made their dearest friends at school, had adventures, and never left their friends behind no matter how high the stakes and narrow the odds of success. As for girls and their friendships, less was said, but her studies of exceptional women in Encyclopedias, like Joan of Arc and Cleopatra, convinced her that women had just as much a store of the nobler virtues as any man. If a girl put her mind to it, she could have just as rewarding and nobly upheld a friendship as a boy.  
The girls at her school, Miss Rosewater’s School For Young Witches would be strong evidence to one inclined to be convinced otherwise. They hated her. They had hated her before they met her, because their parents had told them who her father was, and they held it against her. From the oldest to the littlest girl, they whispered disruptively if she answered a question in class and ridiculed her answer, discreetly kicked or tripped her and laughed when she got in trouble for being disheveled or out of cue, walked by her desk and jostled it or dashed her things to the ground, threw them away, put them in the toilet, or stole her book satchel long enough to slip rude notes into it. Sometimes she cried; sometimes, she screamed at them. But, she knew in her heart that she was losing hope of either making a friend or getting their bullying to stop-she was becoming used to her own company, and that of her cat, Circe, and books.  
In the summer, she could breathe freely, until this summer. Phoebe sat in the warm grass beneath her favorite tree in the garden, a towering ancient oak. Its leaves cast a black, lacy net of shadows on the pages of her book, ‘Clermont’ by Regina Maria Roche. The heroine, Madeline, was a French girl evading bloody murder in an old castle in France. How many mysteries or stories of girls in peril had she read? How many times had her eyes laid on the word ‘murder’? It was different now, that her father, the murderer, had escaped. She tried to concentrate on poor old Madeline, but it was no use…Phoebe raised her eyes and looked around at the cheerful sunflowers, lupins, grindelias, and rosebushes, shade trees and hedges of her Aunt Muriel’s garden at Pomeroy Court, but the beautiful surroundings couldn’t shake the image from the morning paper out of her head: her father, his skin waxy, his face veiled by matted black hair, his tattooed knuckles gripping his prison number tightly as he screamed, his face mouth twisted and gaped as he screamed, screamed silently, the photograph showing the way his head shook, neck twisted, and lips stretched, but unable to capture what he was bellowing. Threats? Vows of revenge? Loyalty to Voldemort? Or more of the maniacal laughter that the article said he laughed as he was being arrested. He hadn’t had a trial-what need was there of one? The bloody remains of the people he had killed, one of them his best friend, littered the cracked ground around his feet.  
When she got back to school, the other girls would hate her worse than ever. She had asked Auntie Muriel if she could go to Hogwarts, instead.  
“Ha!” the old woman had laughed, pausing her dainty sips of her morning tea at a wicker table and chair in the solarium. Hanging baskets of flowers lined the glass walls, and sunlight streamed in generously.  
Her breath smelled like rotting teeth and candy, a rotten and treacly combination. She wore a high-necked, mutton sleeved gown made of dark plum taffeta that gleamed like a polished amethyst, and a cameo broach at her throat.   
“That’s where he’s headed, girl. And don’t think that he won’t get wind of it, if you were in that castle. He’d slit your throat in your sleep-if he has a heart enough left to stop there,” Muriel said darkly.  
Feeling like someone was squeezing her heart, Phoebe finished up her breakfast slice of melon quickly and grabbed a few books from the shelf of the Pomeroy Court library. Her wavy black hair loose down the back of her long sleeved, high collared, white cotton day dress, wearing no shoes, she settled under her favorite tree to read until Muriel sent a house elf to collect her for tea. From what she understood, a poor relation was coming to beg Muriel’s help, in some way. Muriel was related to most Purebloods in Britain, and they were “in and out of the house like fleas on an off a dog’s back,” as Phoebe’s guardian put it, asking for monetary help or even just a good word. She treated Pomeroy Court like the residence of a monarch, and she certainly reigned over her relatives with her stingy favor and subtle threats to withhold or withdraw it, but she was only its steward until Phoebe came of age. It had come to her through her mother, Astra, the last of the Pomeroys.  
Her mother had a Malediction, a blood curse that caused health problems, and died shortly after Phoebe was born.   
“From what I understand, your father left you in the care of house elves, while he travelled up and down the country on Dumbledore’s business, so we all thought. No one found it suspicious-what would a wild young man like that want to do with a baby? Well, we know what he was really about, of course. After your mother went, he just got sloppy-no one to lie to, no reason to hide,” Auntie Muriel had told her one night, as they sat in the drawing room after dinner.   
Phoebe had pretended to be focused with all her concentration upon her needlepoint sampler of a maiden and a unicorn. Such was after dinner conversation with Muriel, who was everyone’s aunt and no one’s friend. Phoebe wanted to tear her own clothes and hair, and run around in circles screaming, if she wasn’t reading.   
She couldn’t concentrate. She had tried reading ‘Clermont’, The Metamorphoses by Ovid, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and only gotten a few paragraphs through any of them when Muriel’s house elf, Daisy, came to fetch her. She stood, brushed herself off, and followed Daisy. The girl and her mother had arrived for tea, Molly and Ginevra Weasley. 

“Mummy, how is Auntie Muriel our Auntie?” Ginny asked.  
“What do you mean, how?” Molly said. They sat across from each other on the blue velvet upholstered, plushy seats of the carriage. “On what side of the family?”  
Ginny nodded.   
“Well, both, really, but on my side, she’s my great-aunt, my grandmother’s sister, on my father’s side. So, Prewett all the way, I suppose you could say,” Molly said.  
“And…how are you related to Sirius Black, the murderer?” Ginny asked. Her mother’s eyes widened, as if Ginny had brought up something private, then she remembered letting it slip at breakfast.  
“Well, my mother was born Lucretia Black. She was a Black, and Sirius’s parents were cousins, both Blacks. They were all related. I never knew him terribly well, he was just a boy…but, he was in the Order of the Phoenix, like your uncles,” Molly said.  
“Dumbledore’s secret organization, to fight the Death Eaters!” Ginny said excitedly.  
“Yes…” Molly said hesitantly. “But, as we know now, he was truly Voldemort’s man.” She sighed, in dismay. “Merlin only knows, the secrets he told him, and how many people were captured, killed, ambushed, because of it…”  
She fell silent for a bit, and then said, “Ginny, I wish you wouldn’t take such an interest in these old war stories. It all sounds exciting…but it was a sad, scary time. You have no idea how unhappy people were!”  
“I’m sorry, Mummy,” Ginny said, and looked down at her shiny black shoes.  
“If Auntie Muriel does like what she sees in you, Ginny…then you’re going to be going to Miss Rosewater’s School For Young Witches. And its not like Hogwarts. There are no sports, no ghosts, no Forbidden Forest or giant squid in the lake. You’ll be learning how to behave like a lady,” Molly stressed.  
“You said that already!” Ginny said.  
“Well, you don’t seem to understand! You can’t run into trouble and keep secrets at a place like that. The teachers there are witches whose business it is to make you a lady, and they’re going to be watching you closely,” Molly said.  
Ginny didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t meant to keep Tom a secret, exactly…he was nice at first, so she thought, where was the harm? He was kind, and helpful, at first. When she started blacking out, she didn’t work out at first that the same power and personality, “Tom”, that animated the diary was also leaping into her mind and making her do things, taking over, making her sleep in oblivion like cold, dark waters…Ginny felt dirty and bad, and like it would be useless to explain to her mother what Tom was like, what the Chamber was like.  
“What’s the point of learning how to be a lady? Do they teach magic?” Ginny asked.  
“Yes, they teach magic! What other sort of school would we send you to? But it’s a school for girls, and they keep a close eye on the girls in a place like that. There’s no sneaking off,” Molly said sharply. Ginny felt annoyed.   
“I DIDN’T SNEAK OFF! I WAS TAKEN! HE TOOK ME!” Ginny shouted.   
She had never shouted in her mother’s face. She had never heard her brothers do so, either. Her mother was the one who shouted, everyone else listened to her and obeyed.  
Her mother looked at her, stunned. Ginny felt a wave of shame and guilt wash over her. She was bellowing like the picture of the madman, the murderer, Sirius Black. She was bad, she was Voldemort’s servant. She hugged herself, curled up in the carriage seat, and cried.  
“Ginny, don’t cry! You’ll look a fright when we get to Auntie Muriel’s,” Molly pleaded.  
“I don’t care! You blame me! You think I went down there myself. I don’t even remember. Tom…Tom was in control,” Ginny said. “And you don’t believe me….”  
“Ginny, I do believe you. Dumbledore told me and your father exactly what happened,” Molly said. She shifted to the same carriage seat as Ginny, and pulled her into her arms. “I’m sorry. I just wish…that it had never happened.”  
“So do I, Mummy,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I? I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to do those things. I don’t want to be bad…”  
“No, no, Ginny, you’re not bad,” Molly said quickly, and caressed her red hair away from her forehead. “You’re not bad…the Malfoys tricked you…they wanted to discredit your father…thank Merlin, Dumbledore kept it all quiet…his word is good, no one will ever know…”  
“They all know, Mummy,” Ginny sniffled.  
“Not at Miss Rosewater’s. You can start over there. Become a lady. You can go to work, when you’re 17. You can be a secretary at the Ministry…meet a nice boy…” Molly said. “No one will ever know, I promise, Ginny.”  
She thought she was making her feel better, but Ginny felt worse. Ginny’s tears calmed down, and she wiped her face with Molly’s handkerchief, and blew her nose. She settled down, and looked out the window. The eight-legged horses were pulling them down the drive, lined with green, cheerful dogwood trees. A brick Georgian house came in view, set on a neat verdant lawn.  
“That’s Pomeroy Court,” Molly said.  
“How many rooms does it have, Mummy?” Ginny asked.  
“Count the windows, then multiply it by two!” Molly said, throwing herself into cheerfulness. She seemed relieved that Ginny was acting like a normal little girl, again…not a secretive, sneaking, mad, bellowing servant of Voldemort. Ginny steeled her nerves, so that she could keep pretending.


	4. Chapter 4

Phoebe stood in front of her mirror. The walls of her room were covered in dove gray water silk, and her bed was a four-poster with a Prussian blue silk curtains. At night, if she left the window open, a gentle summer breeze penetrated the curtains, and Phoebe lay there wishing that the stir of the silk was from the hands of a lover who had stolen through the garden, to her window.  
By lover, she meant…someone like Porphyro from “The Eve of St. Agnes”, or Romeo Montague-courteous, but passionate, who would take risks to see her, or loyal and understanding like Valancourt from The Mysteries of Udolpho.   
Her fantasies beyond that were rather nebulous. She really didn’t know any boys. Girls at Miss Rosewater talked about idols from Witch Weekly, or any boy they knew from Pureblood society however scantly, milking acquaintance and banal encounters into the sort of incidents worth speculation about How He Really Feels and The Future, until everyone got sick of hearing the same thing from the same girl, and talk moved on. The older girls, of course, took a chaperone to their debut at the Assembly Hall, but it was usually a brother, brother’s friend, or cousin. Phoebe had no one. She had no brothers, and her Uncle Regulus had not provided her with any cousins before being murdered by Voldemort. Perhaps her father had whispered to the Dark Lord about his brother, and convinced Voldemort he only needed one brother.   
As Daisy brushed her hair, and tied a gleaming pale blue sash around her white cotton dress, Phoebe looked at her reflection. Was there madness? Was there evil? What lay within? Would anyone ever love her? How would she tell them who she was, who and where she came from?  
She followed Daisy down the hall, past portraits of her Pomeroy ancestors, and antiques from centuries of travel, luxury, and discerning collection. Daisy led her to Auntie Muriel’s chair in the red sitting room, with Queen Anne furniture and all other upholstered trappings done in red velvet. She sat there with a proud, stiff back, clutching the tip of her walking stick with patient expectation. She knew that she had all the time in the world-it was those who had come to see her, who must impress.  
Standing before her was a curvy woman in a rather drab brown skirt, brown cardigan, and green blouse, and green felt hat with a small brown owl feather, and kitten heels. Her hair drew Phoebe’s eyes-it was a lustrous ginger the color of copper. Her daughter stood beside her, a thin young girl in a navy blue party dress and white eyelet pinafore that were both too young-looking for her. She looked about 12, and 12 is sometimes older than adults think, and younger than 12-year-olds realize. The girl’s hair was a shade darker than her mother’s, not a yellow tinted flame swaying on a wick, frisky but contained: her hair was like an orange blaze engulfing a forest.   
The girl with the wildfire hair looked over at Phoebe. Her eyes were like amber, or honey, a liquid and shiny light brown. Phoebe smiled. The girl smiled too.  
“Phoebe! Come here!” Muriel said. “This is Molly Weasley, and her daughter Ginevra. She’s never been to Bath, before.”  
“How do you find it?” Phoebe asked.  
“Oh, we didn’t have to, to the carriage driver knew the way,” Ginevra said.  
Phoebe laughed before she could stop herself.  
“I never knew the child could laugh! She’s usually quite miserable. I suppose she can’t help it. It’s a good thing you find Miss Weasley so amusing, she will be starting at Miss Rosewater’s next month,” Auntie Muriel said.  
Molly Weasley looked stunned, and said, “Have you decided, Aunt?”  
“Yes, obviously, Molly. Oh, I suppose you’re asking about the money? It won’t be an issue. If you’ll allow me to pay her way, I shall. If that would offend you and Arthur, then I can make arrangements,” Muriel said.  
“What sort of arrangements?” Molly asked.  
“Well, the girl can be a student free of charge so long as she stays on after graduation as a teacher, that sort of thing,” Muriel said.  
“But…” Ginevra began, and her mother looked at her with narrowed eyes and a thin mouth. She looked younger and mollified.  
“Arthur wouldn’t object to you giving Ginny a…gift, like this, Auntie Muriel. Thank you,” Molly said.  
Muriel waved her hand dismissively. “Yes, yes. Phoebe, take Ginevra out to the garden,” she said.   
This was her chance! A friend! New girls never came to Miss Rosewater’s but she had met Ginevra before everyone else, and they could be friends. Phoebe met Ginevra’s amber eyes, and tried to suffuse her eyes and her smile with warmth and welcome. She held out her hand, and Ginevra followed her.


	5. Chapter 5

The soft grass of the lawns and the blue sky overhead were less a comfort than they could’ve been, as Phoebe’s presence made Ginny anxious. She walked behind her, Auntie Muriel’s ward, with stiff arms, curled fingers, and mincing steps.   
Its just that Phoebe was so beautiful: her long, full, wavy hair was a glistening black color which stood out richly and sharply against the cotton lace of her simple but elegant summer dress. She walked with a young woman’s grace, and in audience with Auntie Muriel Ginny had noticed the swell of budding breasts beneath the lace panels on Phoebe’s bodice. With her mature beauty, Phoebe made Ginny feel small and useless, the way Hermione Granger had at Hogwarts with her intellect and easy friendship with Harry.   
But, Ginny had to admit that Phoebe did seem nice, and she had laughed at her joke about finding Bath. Maybe they could be friends…but, she was nervous to try after so many failed attempts at Hogwarts.   
They came upon a reflecting pool, shaded by a ring of willows. An ornamental Greek temple sat in the middle of an island in the pool. The reflection of the willows graced the water’s with their green reflections.  
“My Mother is buried there, inside the white tomb, on the island,” Phoebe said.  
Ginny’s eyes widened.   
“Your Mummy? She’s dead?” Ginny said, and wanted to slap herself for saying ‘Mummy’, instead of the much cooler, more grown-up, ‘Mum.’  
Phoebe nodded slowly. “Her name was Astra,” she said.  
“What was she like?” Ginny asked.  
“I was a baby-I never knew her. But, Auntie Muriel always says that she was merry, and I am nothing like her,” Phoebe said.  
“Well, Auntie Muriel thinks she knows everything,” Ginny said  
Phoebe laughed, again. “I hope I’m not like her, when I’m old. I don’t think I’ll be so imperious and insulting, anyway. But, I suppose she’s generous, too. She helps a lot of people…” Phoebe said.  
“So, when your Mummy died, you came to live with her?” Ginny asked.  
Phoebe looked around, as if checking to see if they were quite alone.   
“Well…I shouldn’t say so…but, its my house. I mean, it belonged to my mother, and she was the last of the Pomeroy family…and, now, I am. I’m going to inherit it properly, when I come of age…but, Auntie Muriel looks after it,” Phoebe said.  
That grand house, and the gardens, and the verdant lawn, all that Ginny saw before her, belonged to the girl in the cotton lace sundress standing before her? She was as rich as the Malfoys…and her mother had begged for Auntie Muriel’s favor and money for Ginny’s tuition right in front of this girl, this little heiress to the very grass on the ground beneath Ginny’s feet…She blushed, and looked down at her mary-janes.  
“What’s wrong?” Phoebe asked. “are you scared to go to school?”  
“I’ve been to school before,” Ginny snapped a little defensively, and said proudly, “I went to Hogwarts.”  
“Really?” Phoebe said, in clear awe. “I’ve always wanted to go to Hogwarts!”  
Ginny was surprised to hear the undisguised awe in the girl’s voice. This rich girl in her beautiful dress, heiress to a mansion and land and Merlin only knew how much gold, was in awe of her because she had been to Hogwarts?  
“What is it like?” Phoebe asked hungrily, and Ginny remembered how she had felt as she asked her brothers questions about their year at school.  
“It’s…huge,” Ginny said, and she described the school to her as they walked around the reflecting pool.   
Phoebe’s eyes were attentively trained on Ginny, devouring every detail, and the words spilled easily from Ginny’s mouth as they did from her quill when she was writing in her journal. She described to Phoebe the enchanted ceiling in the Great Hall, which reflected the sky in different weather and times of day, the floating candles, moving and speaking portraits, the Astronomy tower that was so high mist skirted the windows, the cold and wet dungeon where Professor Snape presided over the frothing cauldrons in his dark robes like bat’s wings furled around a vampiric creature, Professor McGonagall’s time-honored first day demonstration of her Animagi abilities by turning into a cat, the giant pumpkins that the equally giant Hagrid grew in his rustic garden, and the giant squid in the lake with its fat, languid tentacles. She talked until her jaw hurt a little, and her throat was dry. She realized she had never talked to anyone this much.  
“It sounds even more wonderful than I imagined!” Phoebe said.  
“Why won’t Auntie Muriel let you go?” Ginny asked.  
“She doesn’t think its proper for boys and girls to learn in mixed company,” Phoebe said.  
Ginny laughed. “That’s so old fashioned! She’s ancient!”  
Phoebe laughed, but a frown appeared between her black eyebrows. “Well, I think its because of my parents: they met there, and eloped,” she said.  
“So did my parents!” Ginny said.  
“No!” Phoebe gasped.  
“Yes. My Mummy always says,” Ginny did an imitation of her mother’s voice with a resigned sigh, “ ‘It was the war, you know: mad days!’”   
Phoebe laughed again, and said, “Mad, and romantic. You see, my mother was ill. A Blood Malediction. And, my father, he was a wild, rebellious, disreputable sort of boy, from an old family. They disowned him, and told all the wizards they knew to shun him. But, my mother was fatally, irrevocably, utterly in love with him. They got married, and joined the Order of the Phoenix together, to fight the Dark Lord.”  
“What happened next?” Ginny asked.   
She loved a good story, and Phoebe was a good storyteller. She looked into Ginny’s eyes, held her gaze, and pulled Ginny in as if she was telling her a secret between just the two of them that no one had heard before.   
“He broke her heart. He was a traitor. Ginny…I must be honest with you, because if you go to Miss Rosewater’s, you’re going to hear all about it from everyone, anyway: my father was Sirius Black,” Phoebe said.  
Ginny was rocked as if the ground beneath them had begun to quake. The deranged man, the traitor to the Order of the Phoenix, the man Ginny’s mother was ashamed to be related to, was the father of this beautiful girl before her? She looked at Phoebe’s face, and saw feelings that she knew well: shame, self-doubt, the sad conviction that she was bad. Ginny didn’t want her to believe that. She knew how ashamed she was of the Chamber of Secrets, and didn’t want Phoebe to succumb to that shame about being Sirius Black’s daughter.  
Ginny took Phoebe’s hand, and looked into her dark, starry eyes.   
“Then, that means that you’re my cousin,” Ginny said, and tried to communicate with her eyes that she accepted Phoebe utterly.   
Phoebe smiled, and Ginny saw new hope flood their eyes.  
“Come see the greenhouses, and the menagerie. We have unicorns. The foals are so sweet,” Phoebe said, her voice redolent with gratitude. Ginny felt calm and happy, reassured, and strong. She was sure that she had just made a friend.  
“GINNY!” her mother bellowed.   
Ginny looked, and saw her mother coming towards them. Ginny was embarrassed of the sight of her mother in her faded, old looking clothes, and her anxious look, and the way she shouted.  
“Mummy, Phoebe’s going to show me the menagerie and the greenhouses,” Ginny said.  
“Maybe next time, dear; Auntie Muriel is taking us to tea, in town. We have to meet her at the carriage,” Molly said. “Phoebe, dear, she told me to tell you to go up to your room and practice your harp.”  
“You play the harp?” Ginny asked.   
“I hate it,” Phoebe said. “There are music lessons at Miss Rosewater’s-you’ll have to pick an instrument. It was a pleasure to meet you, Madam Weasley. I look forward to seeing you again, and you, Ginevra.”  
She walked back towards the house, and Molly grabbed Ginny’s hand and pulled her along to Auntie Muriel’s carriage.  
“What a sad little thing!” Molly said.  
“She’s not-she’s really nice,” Ginny said.  
“Yes, yes, of course, dear, I only meant…well, I’m glad you two have made friends! Didn’t I tell you? Miss Rosewater’s is good for you, already,” Molly said.


	6. Chapter 6

“Why can’t Phoebe come to tea?” Ginny asked.  
She, Auntie Muriel, and Molly were settled in the carriage. It began to move, and the trees along the drive waved, winking sunshine and dripping lacy shadows, the silhouettes of green leaves. The carriage was swiftly, invisibly carrying them to the Wizard Quarter of Bath.  
“Phoebe needs a disciplined, orderly day, if she’s ever to be so exemplary a lady as to live down her parents’ shame,” Auntie Muriel said brusquely.  
“Poor, dear Astra. It’s a blessing she didn’t live to know what Black truly was,” Molly said, shaking her head in pity.  
“Black as his name,” Muriel lamented. “How I warned, advised, exhorted her…all to no good end. I was too fond, too indulgent with her, because she had no parents. Well, now nor does her daughter. I see the error I made in the mother’s case, I shall not be too light with the daughter.”  
“Are they quite strict, at Miss Rosewater’s?” Molly asked.   
“They allow no lollygagging! They turn out no flibberdygibbets!” she said vehemently.  
They sounded like the nonsense words that were the passwords to get past the Fat Lady’s portrait, to Gryffindor Tower! Ginny couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Her mother glared at her as if she’d used a swear word.  
It wasn’t fair, Ginny thought. Adults were so often ridiculous, but kids weren’t allowed to laugh.

The countryside peeled away, they rode into town, invisible to Muggle eyes. Much of Bath’s architecture, its streets, shops, churches, and townhouses, was preserved from the 18th century. Ginny looked out the carriage windows, at the stone edifices, which were grand and crafted for the stately beauty of another era. The cathedral overlooking the cobblestone square and the shops gave Ginny the same intimations of the cares of another age, just like the pyramids in Egypt had. This was a structure built for perpetuity, to turn the infinity of faith into a tangible monument to last the ages.   
The carriage pulled up to a building paneled with dark marble, that glittered lustrously black like volcanic glass. Gold letters bore the name, ‘The Pump Room’. It looked like a Muggle establishment, but Ginny knew that magical doors to the world of Wizards could be hidden anywhere, right under the Muggles’ noses.   
The carriage driver helped Auntie Muriel out of the carriage, and she gracefully smoothed out her amethyst gown. Molly grasped Ginny’s hand tightly. Too tightly. How she longed to shake off that plump, smooth, familiar hand, and get free. What she would do and where she would go, she didn’t know, but she knew that her mother held on too tightly. The carriage driver was removing a manhole on the sidewalk, and in an elaborate, old-timey gesture of obeisance, bowed to Auntie Muriel and indicated that the uncovered manhole was ready for her use with an elaborate sweep of his hand.   
Auntie Muriel opened her lacy parasol, and with a stern look of unimpeachable composure, she jumped through.   
Ginny’s eyes widened at the sight of her elderly great-aunt, in all her Victorian frippery, jumping into the chasm.  
“Watch me, and then go after me, fast, before you can think twice about it, all right?” Molly said, and then her plump frame also disappeared down the much smaller hole.   
Ginny looked at the hole, and saw only a circle of darkness as if cut out of dark paper. She thought of how she had begged Tom, pleaded that she didn’t want to go to the Chamber to die. She didn’t want to die in the dark, but that was when he had become too strong. She couldn’t breathe, and her mind was screaming though her voice was being stolen. When she woke up, she was in the chamber, and so was Harry, covered in blood, with the dead basilisk’s blank eyes regarding them both blindly. It was dead, she was not, and she was relieved and confused…what could have been stronger than Tom? Was he really gone, who and what had stopped him? She had put together that it was Harry, but she felt too guilty and weak to really thank him, or ask him how he had done it.   
“Miss, Madam Prewett doesn’t like dawdlers, if you’ll pardon me for saying so. Would you like me to accompany you?” asked the carriage driver.   
“No! I’m not a baby,” Ginny said, all remembrances of Tom, the Chamber, and Hogwarts banished by her annoyance. Anger, she had found, was like a fire inside that burnt away ignoble emotions like fear and timidity.  
“Very well,” said the carriage driver, and gave her a small push. She fell into the dark chasm, and landed on her bottom, at her mother’s and Auntie Muriel’s feet.  
“Get up!” Auntie Muriel snapped roughly.  
Ginny smarted, but also struggled to her feet. The old woman looked at her with glowering contempt, and for that moment Ginny hated the loosely fleshy, wrinkled jowls of aged flesh hanging from the bones of her thin face.   
She looked at her mother, expecting a fiery, outraged defense. Of course Ginny hadn’t meant to fall, anyone would have. Molly was looking down at her feet. Instead of blazing indignation, she looked worried and embarrassed. Ginny frowned…when her mother squared her shoulders, stuck her ample chest out, and put her hands on her hips and shouted, even Fred and George at their wildest obeyed her with a cowed, subdued countenance. Even their father knew to mildly agree and comply when she was in a temper. If Molly took it into her head to tell Muriel not to be so hard Ginny, she was sure that Muriel would listen.  
For the first time, Ginny felt like her mother didn’t care. She was furious, saddened, and a new, deflated and vulnerable feeling that she remembered from when she realized that Tom wasn’t helping her, he was the cause of her sleepwalking and memory loss.   
Ginny looked around. The streets were identical to the Bath they left behind, except for the wizards and witches teeming the streets openly. This was Underground Bath, the Wizards’ quarter. Men and women in cloaks walked the streets around the square, shopping, talking, all wearing the cloaks, robes, and Victorian-esque garments typical of their people. The only reason that Ginny and her brothers wore Muggle jeans and tshirts at home was that they were the easiest clothes to Summon from nearby using a Summoning charm. When Ginny asked if that was stealing, Molly said, “No!”, but Ginny was sure that meant because it was from Muggles. She Summoned their food, too.  
They entered the Underground version of the Pump Room, whose walls were smooth and white as if iced with vanilla frosting. Crystal chandeliers hung overhead, and shed golden light that reflected warmly on the white walls. Guests sat at tables covered in immaculate white tablecloths. Delicate and lulling music floated about the room, violins and other elegant string instruments. Ginny looked and saw a string quartet made up of four fauns wearing white shirts, tailed coats, and bowties, leaving their furry legs and cloven hooves bare.   
“Fauns!” Ginny said. “I thought they lived in the wild!”   
“Yes, well, these are civilized enough to entertain,” Muriel said. “the lesser races can, in some cases, be good for that sort of thing. Were you at that fete for Narcissa Malfoy’s birthday? There was a ballet of rusalkas, quite charming. Oh, but no, you wouldn’t have…”  
She cleared her throat, realizing her error, that the Weasleys wouldn’t have been invited to Madam Malfoy’s birthday.   
“Daddy says its wrong to think of Non-Humans as lesser. They’re treasures of a different sort of knowledge than wizards have,” Ginny said proudly.  
Her mother glared at her once more, and then gave a bright, high, almost shrill laugh, and said, “Ginny is a daddy’s girl, she always has been! And, you know, Arthur is eccentric.”  
“But, its true! Wizards aren’t better than non-humans! Obviously they’re better at some things than us: its not wizards playing the violin right now,” Ginny insisted, disregarding Molly’s warning expression. If she wasn’t going to stand up for Ginny, why should she care what she told her to do and not to do?  
“Wizards have better things to do, and a greater capacity to do it! Now, hush, you saucy little heathen! Molly, you told me that she was well-behaved!” Muriel said.  
“She is! She will be! Auntie, her ordeal, you must bear in mind…” Molly wheedled, as a plump and balding wizard in fancy brocade robes waved them over to one of the white tables.  
“Muriel! Bless my eyes! Its been an age!” he crowed.  
“Horace!” she crooned with feigned pleasure, and Molly and Ginny followed her to his table.  
They air kissed each other’s cheeks, and Muriel said, “Molly, you’ll remember Professor Horace Slughorn from your Hogwarts days, I’m sure.”  
Hogwarts! Ginny’s stomach squirmed at the name of it.   
Before Molly could answer, Slughorn said, “Molly Prewett, ah yes! Who could forget that ginger hair! So bright, I could hardly be heard over it! The archetypal Gryffindor, always bravely flouting the curfew, from what I recall.”  
Ginny felt herself blushing in vicarious embarrassment for her mother. At their home, she was indomitable. Amongst these people, she had to beg, pander, mince, and be scolded like a child.   
“I might have been out of bed after lights-out a few times,” she admitted in a murmuring voice Ginny had never heard her use.  
“To visit with Arthur Weasley, from what I recall! Well, he married you, did the honorable thing, that’s all right. In the Ministry now, Mr. Weasley, isn’t he? I’m sure you both did as well as can be expected,” Slughorn said. “and who is this pixie?”  
“My niece, Ginevra. She’s starting at Miss Rosewater’s school, soon,” Muriel said. “She was at Hogwarts last year.”  
“Ah. Then you were taught Potions by my successor, Severus Snape. How did you find him?” Slughorn said.   
“Sort of…like a bat,” Ginny said.  
“Ginny!” Molly gasped, but Slughorn threw back his bald, head and laughed from his belly.  
“Ah, yes, Severus was always a lugubrious young man. I assure you, Ginevra, the lighting in my classroom is much brighter,” Slughorn said, with a wink.   
“Do you teach at Miss Rosewater’s?” Ginny asked.  
“Every other Friday, dear. I’m officially retired, but teaching is a hard profession to set aside just like that. Its very fulfilling, to help young people in their development,” Slughorn said. “Your aunt is very generous, to send you to such an institution as Miss Rosewater’s.”  
Molly blushed. Slughorn had so correctly and succinctly guessed that Muriel was footing the bill, and Molly and Arthur couldn’t afford Ginny’s new school on their own.  
Muriel and Slughorn talked about a few mutual acquaintances, both Molly and Ginny standing around going spare, ignored, until Slughorn rose from his table and bid them all goodbye pleasantly. Despite his polite and affable manner, Ginny had felt distaste at his digs at her parents’ when they were teenagers, the dismissive way he talked about her father, and the way he mentioned Muriel paying for her tuition. Why did money matter so much?   
A faun waiter came up to Muriel, and respectfully led them to a table. Muriel placed their order.  
“Has Phoebe been here before?” Ginny asked.  
“Many times. Despite her unfortunate parentage, Ginevra, I do counsel you to take your cousin as your role model in all matters of deportment and demeanor. She works so very tenaciously to live past the shame of her name. Even before Sirius, the Blacks were infamous,” Muriel said. “I shudder to think what would’ve happened if Walburga had gotten her, rather than me.”  
“Well, the Wizengamot decided wisely,” Molly said eagerly. She sounded so like Percy, strategically saying the right thing.   
“Indeed,” Muriel said. “It will be much less of a rumpus in Ginevra’s case.”  
“Hmm?” Molly asked.  
“When you transfer her to me,” Muriel said.  
Molly’s eyes widened. “Beg pardon?”  
“Surely you don’t expect the child to flourish, going between that weasel den and Miss Rosewater’s. Whatever will she make of the world? She’ll hardly know what to do, and no lessons imparted to her through good models of conduct will stick when thrown into the wilderness every holiday. No, no. Molly, you are a Prewett! You had better chances! Ginevra still has her chances before her. She’ll do much better at Pomeroy Court, with Phoebe to guide her. Ginevra will never have Phoebe’s expectations, no, but if she can prove herself of good character and breeding, then as Phoebe rises, so will Ginevra. She will not forget the companion of her infancy. But, she will be beyond any of us aiding her to rise if she is allowed to go to seed,” Muriel said.  
Molly was speechless. Her mouth was open, her face was red. Now, they could at least go home. Muriel had been so cruel, she had said such horrible things, her mother was sure to get outraged now.   
She sighed, and her heavy bosom flagged.  
“I know, Auntie. Its different now, after what happened at Hogwarts. If the story gets round…after the war with You-Know-Who, no one wants to be entangled with another Dark wizard, or look as if they suffer one in their midst. Too many people lost too much. Whole families were killed…we have to do things your way to save her reputation, her future,” Molly said.  
“I didn’t do those things! It was Tom! And he wasn’t really my friend, he was Voldemort!” Ginny said.  
“Ginny! Don’t say that name!” Molly said shrilly.  
“Be quiet!” Muriel hissed sharply, her bony finger in Ginny’s face, her watery eyes glaring and boring into Ginny’s angrily. “Yes, you did do those things, you little heathen! And you can never go back to Hogwarts! But you won’t be going back to that den of weasels, either. Because I failed your mother when she was a girl, I didn’t argue hard enough against her ridiculous elopement with your ridiculous father, I will not fail you. I will make you a lady, even if you are a spoiled rotten, wild, willful, smart-mouthed heathen, now. I don’t think you knowingly did dark magic, but I do think you need a firm hand. I will be that hand. Now, be quiet! I don’t want to hear you speak again between now and when we return to Pomeroy.”  
Ginny looked at her mother for help. Molly said, “Ginny, listen to Auntie Muriel. She’s the only one who can help us to help you, now…” in a thin, distracted, sad and helpless voice that made Ginny so enraged she didn’t have the chance to be sad.  
She fought the tears that she wanted to shed, but it was harder to fight the anger. She was shaking inside, and feverishly hot.   
She swallowed the saliva that was collecting in her mouth, and said nothing. She had nothing to say. She hated them both, Muriel, for all the hateful things she had said, and her mother, for not doing anything about it.  
The faun waiter brought their raspberry oolong tea, as well as small, crustless sandwiches, made of watercress and egg, or salmon and Brie cheese, and a silver tiered platter of desserts: Victoria sponge cake, a light fruitcake, a glazed lemon drizzle cake, and a Battenberg cake with pink and yellow squares inside. Ginny tried a little of everything, as her mother instructed; Molly ‘oohed’ and ‘ahhed’ over the taste and the beauty of the frostings and glazes, and the intricacy of the Battenberg cake’s squares. Ginny couldn’t taste anything, and the food felt heavy in her stomach. It was easy for her to obey, because she wanted to be somewhere else so much that she felt she had left her body.   
She imagined that she was at Hogwarts. It didn’t matter how things had really gone for her there, how spectacularly she’d failed. She still had the Hogwarts that lived in her heart. In the theater of her mind, she transfigured a pebble into a diamond, and Professor McGongall said, “You are a credit to Gryffindor, Miss Weasley”, she brewed a Draught of Living Death perfectly in Potions, and Professor Snape gave it a deliberating taste test before begrudgingly saying, “10 points to Gryffindor”…before passing out in a heap of black robes; she was at a Quidditch match, and after flattening Slytherin with a deft catch of the Snitch, Harry made a beeline towards her as their whole House cheered for him. His green eyes locked on her’s, and he saw no one else…  
“Ginny! You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Molly asked, shaking her out of her reverie.  
“What?” Ginny asked.  
“Don’t you dare say ‘what?’ to your mother that way! Sit up straight, and wipe your mouth,” Muriel said.  
“Would you like to spend the rest of the summer with Muriel and Phoebe, at Pomeroy Court?” Molly asked.  
“No,” Ginny said.  
“Ah, is that so, madam?” Muriel said archly.  
“It will be lovely! There’s the menagerie, the greenhouses, the aviary, the orchards…and you can help Phoebe with her potions garden, and you two can take long walks and talk, and get to know each other,” Molly said.  
“First I have to go to a new school, now I have to leave home?” Ginny asked.  
“Ginny, please, don’t do this to me,” Molly said.  
Ginny felt anger, but also pressure to make her mother happy. But what about her life? Was all really lost for her? Was horrible Auntie Muriel the only way for her to have a life? She wished she had never written in that diary…but, for everything that happened, she was still glad that she had had Tom’s friendship for a while. When people ignored or laughed at her, he listened to her, and was kind…for a while…if she stayed at Pomeroy, Phoebe could be her friend. She was alone, too, and just like Ginny was looked down on for being a Weasley, Phoebe was ashamed of being Sirius Black’s daughter. Ginny knew she could make Phoebe feel better, she could be a real friend to her.   
“I’ll stay at Pomeroy Court,” Ginny said, and her mother sighed with relief.   
After eating, they boarded the carriage.  
“But, how did you get here?” Ginny asked. “and the carriage, how did you fit it through the hole?”  
“What is above is what’s below,” said the carriage driver.   
She didn’t understand. They left Bath behind, and returned to the countryside. In the entrance hall of Pomeroy Court, Ginny said goodbye to her mother. Molly tearfully hugged her, and said,   
“Be good, Ginny.”  
“Since I’m a dark wizard, I reckon I don’t know how,” Ginny said coolly, looking at her mother with obvious anger.  
Molly looked shocked. Ginny relished that she hadn’t seen it coming.  
“No! Of course you’re not a dark wizard! I don’t think that about you. Ginny…you must understand…that this is a better life for you,” Molly said.  
“Because you’re ashamed of our house, and of Daddy. Were you always ashamed? Did you always think that we live in a weasel den?” Ginny said.  
“Muriel said those things, Ginny, not me,” Molly said.  
“You didn’t stop her!” Ginny said.  
“WE NEED HER!” Molly shouted. She was no longer cowed and meek, like at the Pump Room, but the force of nature that Ginny was used to at home. “YOU KNOW WE CAN’T AFFORD A SCHOOL LIKE THAT, AND YOU KNOW WHY YOU CANT GO BACK TO HOGWARTS! DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO FIND OUT?! DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO TALK ABOUT YOU?! THIS IS YOUR FUTURE!!”  
Ginny glared fearlessly into her mother’s narrowed, blazing, glittering eyes, and furious face. She saw right through her. She wasn’t mighty, she was afraid, and let people like Muriel and Slughorn talk down to her.   
“You want everyone to be afraid of you, even Daddy. You yell at everyone, you boss and nag everyone. You like it. But I’m not afraid of you. I hate you!” Ginny shouted, and ran up the stairs.   
She felt wild and heartbroken. She cried, finally, now that she was alone, wild weeping that wracked her body, shook her and filled her sinuses with salty, viscous fluid that she coughed out into her mouth and hacked. She tossed herself onto a chaise lounge in the nearest room with an open door. She was alone, all alone, her mother was throwing her away to hateful Auntie Muriel, and Hogwarts and Harry Potter were out of her grasp, an old life that she had ruined, dreams that never quite came true before breaking into a million pieces. And Ginny was too young and powerless to put any of them back together again.   
“Don’t cry,” said a soft, soothing, kind voice. Ginny sat up, wiped her eyes, and looked up.  
Phoebe was standing in front of her, wearing a cotton floral dress with puffy, short sleeves. She was so lovely. Ginny wished she had her thick, wavy dark hair and gray eyes, and mature beauty, and air of calm and grace. She sat beside Ginny, and put her arm around her.  
“What happened, dear?” Phoebe said.  
“Tea… with Muriel,” Ginny managed to gulp out. She was so embarrassed. She hated crying. It made her head hurt, and it was hard to shake the gloomy mood it put her in once she started.  
“Was the fruitcake dry-is that what’s wrong?” Phoebe said mildly.  
Ginny looked at her, and saw a glint of fun in her gray eyes. She was joking. Ginny laughed. Phoebe laughed too. Ginny felt much better. She sniffed away the fluid swelling in her face, and wiped her tears.  
“She hates me already. She calls me a heathen, and says my house is a weasel den…and Mummy just lets her. She yelled at me,” Ginny said.  
“Just do everything Muriel says where she can see you, and do what you want where she can’t see you. Or Daisy-Daisy tells Muriel everything she sees. She has to-House Elves can’t help it,” Phoebe said.  
“I can’t just sit there and take it, the way my Mum does. Muriel’s bloody awful, and I end up telling her so!” Ginny said.  
“Well, that’s not a very good idea,” Phoebe said reasonably. “But, you couldn’t have been that bad, if she wants you to stay here for the rest of the summer. So, she doesn’t hate you. You’ll know what it looks like when she hates someone. She wants to shape you into a lady, so she’s going to be hard, though. I can help you.”  
Ginny nodded. There seemed to be no other way, so she dearly wanted Phoebe’s help.  
“She’s horrible to me, too. About my father…” Phoebe said.  
“But, you never even knew him! You were just a baby,” Ginny said.  
“She says when I’m married, it won’t matter anymore,” Phoebe said. “She’s in talks with the Malfoys, about their son Draco, for us to be betrothed.”  
“Draco Malfoy?! He’s horrible! He’s a bully! The worse bully at school!” Ginny burst out.  
Phoebe frowned with concern, but then her face smoothed out again.   
“What sorts of things does he do?” she asked.  
“He picks on Harry!” Ginny said.  
“Harry, who?” Phoebe asked.  
“Harry Potter,” Ginny said. At the mention of his name, Phoebe’s eyes dropped to her lap in shame. She looked just like Molly, at tea.  
“What’s wrong?” Phoebe asked.  
Phoebe looked out the window, and all around the room. She was ladylike, but other than those cultivated graces she was worse at holding her emotions in than Ginny-her apprehension to tell the secret and shame at the secret itself were clear on her face, but on her beautiful face, like a Roman statue of a young goddess, it looked dramatic and interesting, not like Ginny’s red face and ugly tears.  
“My father…he didn’t just kill those Muggles, and Peter Pettigrew, Ginevra. Do you know why he killed Peter Pettigrew, his friend?” Phoebe said gravely.  
Ginny realized she hadn’t thought about that part of the story. What was the confrontation between the secret Death Eater and his former friend about?  
“My father was friends with the Potters, too. He was supposed to be their Secret Keeper in a Fidelius Charm that was supposed to keep them safe and hidden from Voldemort. But, he told the Dark Lord where they were…Peter Pettigrew knew that my father was the one, the only one who could have betrayed them. Its my father’s fault that Harry Potter is an orphan. Muriel told me all about it. She’s talked about it more than once. She said my mother begged him to tell her what was wrong, when he rushed out that night…my mother was very ill then, from the Blood Malediction…but he wouldn’t tell her, my father, he wouldn’t say… just that he had to check on James and Lily Potter…but he wasn’t going to help them, Ginevra. He was lying. And my mother, her heart broke, she died…Muriel thinks I would be a liar, too, if she wasn’t hard on me,” Phoebe said.   
“Phoebe, Muriel is a bitter old prune. From now on, we don’t care what she thinks, and we don’t care what kind of people our parents are, or were. The only person I care about is you. You’re my friend,” Ginny said fiercely.   
“Yes! You’ll be my friend. You are my friend, from now on,” Phoebe said ardently.   
“Good! Then, can you call me ‘Ginny’, for Merlin’s sake? Ginevra sounds like a kind of cough syrup or something,” Ginny said.   
Phoebe laughed, and Ginny felt better. She was no longer alone.   



	7. Chapter 7

Molly refused Muriel’s carriage driver as politely as she could. She understood that the man had his orders, but the last thing she wanted was more borrowed luxury, more charity. She felt dazed ,confused, and more heartbroken than she could remember feeling since the war against Voldemort. She thought her heartache was done…until Voldemort returned, and targeted Hogwarts through her daughter. She Apparated home.   
The sight of the weedy, gnome infested garden, the orchard, and the Tudor cottage with its creaky, lopsided additions usually warmed her heart…but the air beside her felt empty without Ginny. Her little shadow…but thinking of her filled Molly’s heart with shame. Just one day of being in Bath, in Muriel’s grand world, and Ginny was ashamed of her.   
Was it Pomeroy Court, and the desire to be like little Phoebe Black? Was it the Pump Room? Was it Horace Slughorn repeating those old insinuations that Molly had gotten pregnant in her last year of Hogwarts, and that was why she and Arthur had married in a hurry? When would those people let it go, stop judging her and her family? Ginny had picked up that she was a figure of scandal, and had quickly dismissed her.  
‘You wanted her to have a new life…a new home…to have everything you gave up…’ she reminded herself.   
Ginny needed this second chance. Molly’s pregnancy and elopement was nothing compared to the stigma of dark magic. Look, for instance, at Severus Snape: no wife, no home, not a friend in the world, a vassal to Hogwarts, teaching at the castle the only option besides being indicted as a Death Eater by the Ministry. Oh, he’d changed sides at the right moment, but everyone knew, and he didn’t have the money and old name to buy a new reputation like Lucius Malfoy. Her bright, beautiful, loving, smart little girl couldn’t be an outcast like that…  
The door opened with a creak, and Arthur looked down at her, sitting on the front steps.  
“Molly, dear, what are you doing, sitting on our steps?” Arthur asked bemusedly. Laughter danced in both their eyes, and Molly felt warm with shared mirth: after all, he was the one between them usually prone to eccentric behavior.  
“Thinking about Severus Snape,” she said.  
Arthur looked quizzical, and said, “A younger man, eh? Should I be jealous?”  
Molly laughed gratefully. “I never liked men with tattooes, never you fear,” she said.  
Arthur smiled appreciatively. “That’s why I love you, Molly. Most people don’t dare to say Voldemort’s name-you just made a joke about the Dark Mark. And this is why all our children are in Gryffindor-they’re brave, like you.”  
She felt warmed and heartened. She stood up, and allowed Arthur to wrap his arms around her-as best he could. She was no longer the buxom, pleasingly plump girl he had dallied with by the lake at Hogwarts…seven pregnancies and taste-testing meals for a large family had caught up with her. How Ginny must have been embarrassed of her old mother in her cheap secondhand suit, compared to the witches on the streets of Underground Bath, strolling the streets in their satin, silk, and velvet cloaks, having tea in their gowns spun from charmed fabric, sewn by elves and nymphs…Molly had glimpsed that world at family gatherings and holidays in her youth, but her parents, though respectable enough to be invited to homes of families like the Blacks and the LeStranges, valued good sense over opulence and luxury. She could have married into a family like that, but Arthur…well, Arthur was Arthur. It had always been simple and essential for her. She wasn’t ashamed of him, but Ginny thought that was the case. Where had she gone wrong? Why did she think these things?  
“I haven’t been brave at all. Maybe we’ve taken the wrong line on this. We’re hiding from what happened to Ginny, instead of meeting it head on, and teaching her how to deal with it,” Molly said.  
“That’s going to be a long process. It might take the rest of her life. But, that’s going to be done at home, when she’s with us. Being at that school, with all the children who’ve heard what they’ve heard and think of her as the person who set a basilisk on the school, will just open the wound every time someone says something,” Arthur said.  
“You think this is what’s best for her?” Molly said.  
Arthur nodded.  
“What if she hates us?” Molly asked.  
Before Molly could answer, shouts of “Mum!” rang from within the Burrow. Molly gave Arthur a chagrinned smile, and then went back inside her home, to the life they had created from what some would say was the worse mistake she had ever made. Molly didn’t feel that way. She loved her life, and her home…but it pained her heart that Ginny was missing from it, and the way they parted.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny is humiliated by Muriel, buoyed by Phoebe's friendship, and dreams of seeing her home, and Harry,once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Muriel is horrible to Ginny, here, and that was quite hard to write. Good thing she has Phoebe's friendship, to see her through! Soon, they'll be leaving for school, but unfortunately not for Hogwarts:(

Phoebe showed Ginny Pomeroy Court. Its portrait gallery and grand staircase were almost as awe inspiring as Hogwarts, and many of the rooms boasted spectacular views of the grounds-the sunken garden, rose garden, and medicine garden, ancient oak trees dripping sunlight and shadows, and the glass buildings of the orangerie and menagerie.   
“That’s my mother,” Phoebe said shyly, gesturing to a portrait of a beautiful dark haired girl in a lustrous silver-white gown, dainty blue flowers in her hair.  
“You look just like her!” Ginny marveled.  
Astra Pomeroy, or, rather, Astra Black looked mild and kind, as if she would gently remind her child what was right, not scold them when they were wrong. And if her child needed to be protected, Astra would gently place herself in the middle of her child and their persecutor with a peacekeeping suggestion, or a mild but firm remonstrance. Ginny imagined Astra in Molly’s place at tea with Muriel, saying, “I think that’s quite enough, Auntie-only look at the state Ginevra is in. Pardon me, but I think you’ve crossed a line, if I do say so.” In her eyes was a strong character.  
Phoebe smiled, and said, “Do you really think so? She was a beauty.”  
“Oh, yes, you really do!” Ginny said, and hoped she didn’t sound like a chirping toadie trying to carry favor.   
Phoebe showed Ginny her harp, even though she claimed to loathe the instrument, and the girls compared wands. Phoebe’s was a fragrant rosewood that Ginny thought suited her perfectly.  
“It’s a good thing you’re not going back to Hogwarts. There will be Dementors there,” Phoebe said.  
Ginny gasped. “Dementors? But, they’re horrid creatures, that eat people’s souls right out of their bodies, and leave them shells that don’t see or know anything!”   
“They’re there to catch my father,” Phoebe said. “he escaped to find Harry Potter.”  
Ginny looked down at her feet, and felt nervous and fluttery. She blushed.  
“Hesmybrothersbestfriend,” she mumbled.  
Phoebe delicately inclined her ear.  
“What was that?” she asked.  
“He’s my brother’s best friend,” Ginny said. “he came round to our house last summer and…I could hardly stand it!”  
“Why? Is he a horrible boy? I hate what my father did to his parents. They would be alive, if not for his betrayal,” Phoebe said.  
“No, he’s not horrible, he’s….” Ginny was at a loss for words.   
When she had first glimpsed him two years before, he was like nothing that Ginny had ever seen before. Boys were no mystery to her. Her brothers were always popping out of a corner she was about to turn, stomping, clomping, running, teasing, shouting. They were a swarm, a flock, an infestation, their noise and intensity only amplified when they were leaving for school. But, Harry was nothing like her brothers. He was still, and radiated a gentle but palpable intensity, and it all coalesced in his bright, smoldering, serene green eyes.   
She loved him…and it was just too much to feel, let alone to talk about. That was the embarrassing part, everyone knew, even Harry, but no one really thought it was serious. That was a relief, sometimes, but at others, it made her sad, as if people thought girls were too silly to feel deeply. She knew what love was, and what it wasn’t. She certainly hadn’t felt the way she felt about Harry about anyone or anything before, and she knew that those feelings had changed her life into Before and After.   
“He’s brave,” Ginny said, and it was the best she could do. Harry had saved her life, and that was hard to put into words.  
Phoebe listened to her, her gray eyes and serene expression taking in Ginny’s confession with perfect understanding.   
Daisy the house elf came to help them change for dinner.   
“I don’t get it-why do you have to have different clothes to eat food?” Ginny said.  
Phoebe laughed. “Its simply how things are done. Its worse when there’s company,” she said, as the house elf helped them into taffeta dresses with pearl buttons and lace collars.   
Phoebe’s was silver, which only heightened the resemblance to her mother’s portrait, and Ginny’s was a dark green which she didn’t like because it reminded her of Slytherin house colors. She wanted to claw it off. She wasn’t the Heir of Slytherin! Tom was, and made her do his awful bidding…  
“What’s wrong? You’re scratching at your dress,” Phoebe asked.  
“I don’t like green,” Ginny said, and hated that she sounded like a whining baby.  
Phoebe took her hand, and smiled at her. Ginny looked at their reflections in the mirror. Phoebe looked like a young goddess visiting earth to give a hero advice in a dire hour. She was luminous, and her gray eyes calmed Ginny.  
“Its all right. If I had a family like your’s, I’d miss home, too. But, since you are here, do try to be happy. What can I do to make you happy?” Phoebe said.  
Ginny squeezed Phoebe’s hand. How could she be a murderer’s daughter? She was so sweet and good!  
“I’m fine,” she said. “home is the last place I want to be, trust me. My brothers are still on holiday, and they’re perfect beasts.”  
Phoebe laughed, and together they walked to the dining room.   
Dinner at Muriel’s meant sitting at a long cherrywood table so shiny that the light of the chandelier overhead, the faces of everyone sitting at the table, and wavy double images of the silver candelabras and centerpiece of stargazer lilies were reflected in its sheen. The meal had different courses, first an artichoke soup, then asparagus in butter sauce and a fish dish, meat tarts and digestive candies called comforts, and then finally dessert. Ginny couldn’t enjoy the meal, because throughout it Muriel sharply critiqued her posture. Phoebe gave her gentle, comforting looks every time Muriel was harsh.   
Ginny refused to let herself cry. As long as Phoebe was beside her, it was all right. But, it was so hard not to say anything back to Muriel as her hatred for the old woman mounted. After they ate, Muriel, Phoebe, and Ginny retired to a drawing room with purple silk walls and deep plum purple furniture. Phoebe played a small piano with a tinny sound that Ginny later learned was called a virginal, and sang in a lilting, operatic style.   
“Can I learn how to play, too?” Ginny said. She wanted her hand’s to move as quickly and gracefully as Phoebe’s.  
“Madam Malfoy is fond of the virginal. Phoebe is practicing to please her mother in law,” Muriel said. “We shall see what we can make of you. Phoebe, who are those apothecary people, from Upper Flagley?”  
“The Fishwicks, Auntie,” Phoebe answered dutifully, and then resumed singing “Greensleeves.”  
“Hmm…they’re not too grand, but they own a slew of apothecaries up and down the land. They could do worse than a Prewett, far worse,” Muriel said.  
“I’m not a Prewett, I’m a Weasley,” Ginny said staunchly. Phoebe’s back stiffened, like an animal sniffing a storm and tensing in wariness.  
“Mark me, girl. Phoebe has a disreputable father, you have a useless one. Neither of you will recommend yourselves to anyone worth having, using the names of fathers like that! If you want to amount to more than schoolmistresses at Miss Rosewater’s, with nothing more to your name than you can carry in a carpetbag, you’ll use what names you can salvage from your mother’s side. Prewett, for you, Pomeroy, for her,” Muriel said, and then popped another violet candy into her mouth. Daisy gave her baskets of them, then took the baskets away when they were empty and brought another. Ginny hated the sight of her jaw moving as she sucked the hard candy.  
“No,” Ginny said.  
“Do you understand your situation, fully, girl? Your mother has relinquished you to me. Your father has done nothing to oppose it. Why do you want his name, when he scarcely wants you?” Muriel said.  
Even anger failed Ginny. She felt as if she had been running and tripped over something she hadn’t seen in her path. Her mother had gushed to her countless times that she had longed for a daughter, and Ginny’s father was always sweet and kind to her…she had never felt unwanted, before. But, maybe Muriel was right, and she wasn’t wanted now…after the chamber. Her parents had their reputation to think about, and what if she was too risky and dangerous to keep around?  
She was in prison for her crimes, just like Sirius Black had been, but she was sentenced to Pomeroy Court, instead of Azkaban.  
“I want to go home!” Ginny roared, so miserable she didn’t care if Muriel punished her or became angry.   
“No, Ginevra!” Phoebe said, sounding afraid. That got Ginny’s attention-what was she afraid of?  
“I won’t tolerate that kind of sauciness from a little girl. This isn’t the weasel den you crawled out from,” Muriel said.  
“Stop calling our house that!” Ginny said.  
“Go up to bed, you horrible child! You unnatural child! I should turn you out of this house! Let you grow up with Muggles. Armando Dippet would have had your wand broken-only a mad fool like Albus Dumbledore would tolerate the likes of you,” Muriel said, with scorn that put Draco Malfoy to shame.   
Ginny had never felt so wounded by mere words.   
The kids at Hogwarts had been horrible, from the first: the girls who had met her attempts to be friends with coldness on the train, and the kids who pointed and whispered at her tattered secondhand books in class, or pointed and laughed at holes and patches in her robes. But, no adult but Lucius Malfoy had ever been that nasty to her. Even Professor Snape wasn’t as bad as her brothers had always made out, at least not to her, because she was so quiet in class. But, unlike Lucius Malfoy, Muriel was supposed to take care of her. How was she supposed to live in the care of an adult who didn’t seem to like her.  
“Aunt, my head aches. May I retire?” Phoebe asked.  
Muriel looked at her as if she did not believe her, but she could hardly quibble with Phoebe’s claim that she was sick.  
“Daisy, prepare lavender syrup for Miss Prewett and Miss Pomeroy, bathe and dress them, and tuck them in,” Muriel ordered, finally.   
Daisy walked both girls upstairs, and gave them baths in rose oil infused water in clawfoot tubs, dried them and dressed them in flannel nightgowns, and tucked them into their canopied beds. Outside the window, Ginny could hear night insects and birds. Their cries made a soothing chorus, and Ginny lay in bed, listening to it and fighting tears.  
“I don’t think your house is a weasel den,” Phoebe said, her voice rising from the darkness after Daisy put out the gas lamps. “Tell me about it.”  
Phoebe laughed as Ginny described the antics of the gnomes in the garden, and sighed in vicarious pleasure as Ginny described the way she liked to leave her window open at night in the springtime so that she could fall asleep breathing in the sweet night breeze perfumed with apple blossoms from the orchard outside her window. Ginny tried to describe all the Muggle objects in her father’s shed, but she didn’t understand all of them. The one she liked best was the TV, and she tried to describe to Phoebe the moving pictures on the glass screen, which looked fuzzy and pixelated with tiny, colorful dots when Ginny pressed her cheek up so close to it that she could feel wavy heat against the tiny hairs of her face.  
“But, you’re not supposed to get that close-it can blind you,” Ginny said.  
“Like the sun,” Phoebe said. “I think I would like your house. Would I like your brothers?”  
“You’d love Fred and George, they’re so funny, and they like to invent things. They’re funny, and clever. And Charlie loves animals, and knows loads about them. Percy is very serious…but, he’s all right, if you want to know about something serious. Bill is the best,” Ginny said.  
“Is he?” Phoebe said, sounding interested.  
Ginny tried to put what she meant into words, but what came to mind was her earliest memory of him-he must have been a schoolboy of 15 or so, and she just more than a toddler, no taller than up to his knee. She was looking up at him, and he was looking down, with warm patience that made her feel seen. She rambled, describing Bill’s work as a cursebreaker, and the family’s trip to Egypt to visit him.  
“He sounds wonderful! What does he look like?” Phoebe said.  
Ginny smiled. This was the easy part. “Tall, with long red hair, like a Viking warrior,” Ginny said.   
Phoebe laughed, enchanted. “And what about Ron?’   
“What about him?” Ginny said grumpily.   
“Oh…he’s not a good brother?” Phoebe asked.  
Ginny sighed. “No, he is. He’s just so stupid sometimes,” she huffed.  
Phoebe laughed. “Ginny, if you can learn to be good, maybe Muriel will let us visit your family. I want to see the orchard, and the gnomes, all of it!”  
Ginny loved that idea…then she remembered that if they went to Ginny’s house during the holidays, they’d probably see Harry Potter! How would Phoebe be able to face him and not feel ashamed of being her father’s daughter? Ginny couldn’t stand the idea of Phoebe feeling badly. But, she also couldn’t imagine Harry hating an innocent girl who couldn’t help who her father was. Surely, he would see Phoebe was good, kind, and gentle. Phoebe fell asleep, and Ginny lay awake imagining her and Phoebe’s visit to the Burrow.   
It felt true to life, so almost real that Ginny yearned for it to be so, that she was sneaking into her father’s shed to watch football games broken up by wavy static lines on the tv, and wearing jeans instead of the starchy dresses she had to wear around Muriel, and sneaking her brothers’ brooms out of the closet to practice flying in a meadow a little ways from the Burrow. She imagined doing all of these things with Phoebe by her side: finally, a best friend! In her fantasies, Harry came upon her and Phoebe walking in the orchard and looked only at her, stunned, and said, impressed, in awe,   
“Ginny! You’ve changed!”   
Her fantasy ended there, as Ginny fell asleep.


	9. Chapter 9

As the days and weeks passed, Ginny came to understand the unspoken rules of living with Muriel. It was a strange combination of elements, but like any mode of living, after a relatively short period in which to adapt it became merely life.  
The luxury of Pomeroy Court made her nervous. If she handled a finely painted china teapot during tea in the solarium, then the dread of breaking something so smooth, colorful, delicate and beautiful only made her hand shake more. She felt the same dread and awe when she touched a musical instrument like the harpsichord, virginal, or harp. The portrait’s faces scared her in a way they never had at Hogwarts, perhaps because without the milling crowds of students, the faces seemed intensely focused on her with their unsmiling gazes. The velvet furniture, silk walls, finely engraved cornices and wainscoting, and various vases and objets d’art of the house intimidated her, and Muriel glared at her as if anticipating that she would break something, eventually, if she dared to touch anything.  
Merlin forbid Muriel misplace a handkerchief, or a piece of jewelry: her first instinct, after sending for Daisy to find it, was to launch a tirade of accusations at Phoebe and Ginny, accusing them of being “ungrateful wretches,” with “bad blood”, who stole from her-never mind that she lived in Phoebe’s house like a queen, and all the things she so prized were Phoebe’s. The dear girl never said anything in her own defense, merely stood there, too stunned for tears, willing herself into stoic endurance until Daisy the elf came to their rescue squeaking, “Found it, I have, Mistress!” producing the stolen items.  
Ginny saw Muriel swallow the bile of her own shame at being wrong and wronging the girls by finding another reason to be angry at them to justify her actions.  
“GO TO YOUR LESSONS!!” she bellowed, and Phoebe and Ginny would scurry to practice music, or to the potions garden.  
Ginny preferred the latter. In the gardens, with the gentle and merciful oak trees’ shade falling on the green grass, the smell of the various flowers and herbs taking flight on the warm summer breeze, she almost felt as if she was at home. Of course, the garden at the Burrow was much wilder, the vegetables that fed her family growing tenaciously amongst gnome holes and overgrown grass, but the familiarity of being outside still calmed her.  
When Phoebe, who was attuned to Muriel’s moods and habits from spending her whole life in her care, was assured that Muriel was sleeping, they went farther than the garden, to the Menagerie.  
“Why does Muriel keep a menagerie? She never visits the animals,” Ginny asked once, as they fed grain to the hippogriffs, given to them by the old caretaker, a Squib named Yester.  
“One of my great-uncles started it. He was a Magical Creatures expert. In fact, he trained under Newt Scamander,” Phoebe said. “I’ll show you our family chronicles in the study, its quite fascinating. One of my grandfathers was the Head Master of the Invisible College!”  
“What’s that?” Ginny asked.  
“Oh, well, it’s a group of learned wizard scholars. They used to let in Muggle alchemists, too, but that had to stop after the Statute of Secrecy,” Phoebe said.  
Ginny didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t think of anything notable any Weasleys had done: figuring out how to house an overlarge family by creating teetering, Englargement Charmed house, and hoarding televisions weren’t the kind of achievements that went in a Chronicle.  
She pretended to be engrossed in feeding the hippogriffs, tawny gray bird-horses that smelled warm and earthy. They moved on to the unicorn pen, and Ginny was entranced by their gleaming silver bodies, and pearlescent horns. In the aviary was an even more enchanting sight, hercinia birds that glowed like opals, their feathers catching the light and spinning it into oil-slick rainbow colors.  
The animals of the menagerie and the plants of the garden seemed fair enough compensation for Muriel’s fits of temper-Ginny hadn’t expected her to be pleasant, after all. However, as they strolled garden lanes between beds of lavender, she couldn’t restrain herself from asking,  
“Phoebe, why don’t you stand up for yourself when she starts in on you, like that?”  
“Ginevra, I’m not like you. I don’t have anyone else…none of my other relations wanted me. I’m tainted. I do come from bad blood, just like Muriel says. Even before my father’s crimes…his whole family were Dark Wizards. They’ve been as bad as they come for as long as anyone can remember,” Phoebe said.  
“You’re not bad! You’re my best friend!” Ginny cried.  
Phoebe smiled. “You’re a dear creature,” Phoebe said lovingly, the most affection Ginny had felt since her last breakfast at home, when her father turned her spilled sausages on her lap into apple blossoms. Phoebe added, “but, sometimes I don’t have much hope that I’ll ever be any better than Muriel says I am. Maybe if my mother had married someone else, I would be a different sort of person.”  
Ginny was shocked. How could Phoebe, whose only flaw seemed to be that she was too mild, too patient and forebearing, too inclined to obey and take even punishments that she didn’t deserve, think that she was bad?  
“It doesn’t matter who your father is! You had a mother, too, and I can tell from her portrait that she was good! And you’re like her, not like Sirius Black. Phoebe, if anyone here is bad, its not you, its me!” Ginny said.  
“You? Ginevra, you’re wonderful!” Phoebe said.  
“No!” Ginny said vehemently, shaking her head vociferously.  
She had to make Phoebe understand. She took her best friend’s hand, squeezing it imploringly, and looking deep into her gray eyes, she told her about Tom, the basilisk, and Harry Potter. Phoebe’s face was not, as Ginny had anticipated, one of shock or disgust by the time she finished her story. She didn’t cry, either.  
“That’s not your fault, Ginny. If it was really Voldemort…he can make people do all sorts of things, can’t he?” Phoebe said.  
Ginny blinked. Not even Dumbledore had said anything like that to her. He had sent her to Madam Pomfrey for hot chocolate like she was a child of at least 9, not a Hogwarts student. Had he already known that she was never going back to his school, and therefore did not deserve an explanation from him? Maybe he hadn’t snapped her wand, but he had far from taken Ginny under his wing. Phoebe looked her in the eye and spoke calmly. Ginny felt her anxiety shed almost instantly, and her guilt went glumly back to sleep, too, both she and it aware that this was merely a postponing of a mortal duel. But, it was postponed all the same.  
“Yes,” Ginny said. “And, like I said, I didn’t even remember. But, he would make hints…and not explain to me what he meant…until I heard everyone talking about the blood on the walls, the chickens, and Colin, Penelope, and Hermione, and I worked it all out…Merlin, Phoebe, I was constantly afraid. Shaking. I thought my heart would just burst one day, even when I felt like I was living with it, getting on with things…”  
“You shouldn’t have had to go through any of it! Isn’t one of your brothers a prefect? Why didn’t your brothers protect you? Isn’t that what they’re for?” Phoebe said.  
Ginny laughed. Only someone whose only knowledge of brothers came from books would say that. It was quite different in practice.  
“Its not their fault,” Ginny said. “It’s a big school, and we’re all in different years, and they have their own friends and everything. I should have known better than to write to that book…I didn’t know where it came from, and it talked back, which is a clear sign of some sort of curse…but, I was just so lonely. No one wanted to make friends, at least not with me. Nothing was like how I thought it would be, even me. I didn’t know what to talk about, or how to talk to anyone, at all. People always look as if they don’t want to talk when you most want to talk to someone, anyone at all.”  
“Well, its exactly the opposite at Miss Rosewater’s-all the girls are the same every year. They don’t go anywhere, particularly, except for growing up and getting married. And some girls don’t even do that! Ms. Flint was a student only last year, but now she teaches History. And she’s as sharp as you’d think, with a name like that!” Phoebe said.  
“Has she got a brother called Marcus? He’s the Slytherin Quidditch captain at Hogwarts,” Ginny said.  
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” Phoebe said.  
“Well, if this Ms. Flint is bony and toothy, I’m sure she’s from the same Flints as him,” Ginny said.  
Phoebe laughed, and said, “You mustn’t talk like that in her class! I swear, she’s a fright!”  
“She can’t be worse than Professor Snape. I told you about him, didn’t I? With the big, black robes, swooping around like a vampire?” Ginny said.  
Phoebe clapped her hands, and said, “Oh, yes, but show me again,” and Ginny promptly hunched her shoulders as if playing Richard III, furrowed her brow, and let her hair fall in curtains in her face as she mimicked Snape skulking up behind one and peering over one’s shoulder to gaze into the cauldron, and see how the potion of the day was coming along.  
Phoebe laughed, drawing the attention of Yester’s grandson Billy, who wore faded Muggle clothing and dingy, ripped sneakers as he helped his grandfather around Pomeroy Court. He stared at Phoebe the way Ginny wished that Harry Potter had stared at her, during her one year at Hogwarts, while he was meant to be putting fruit from the orchard off the side of the garden into barrels. He stared until his grandfather said, “Boy!” gruffly, to get his attention back to his task.  
“That’s Billy Yester,” Phoebe said.  
“Is he a Squib?” Ginny asked.  
“I suppose he’s more of a Muggle. Yester’s daughter didn’t have any magic, either, and she was married to a Muggle-Billy’s father, of course-and she lived somewhere for a bit, but she came back here. They live in the cottage out there,” Phoebe said, and pointed in a vague direction indicating the other side of the estate, beyond the park, garden, orchard and orchard meadows.  
Ginny pushed aside the vague, niggling jealousy she felt. Billy Yester wasn’t as beautiful as Harry…his hair was ratty brown, not black and appealingly messy, his eyes were blue, not emerald green like a magical fire cooking a salamander, or sprinkled with Floo powder…he didn’t have a mysterious smile and a kind expression-he had looked starved and almost predatory as he looked at Phoebe’s womanly body, solemnly beautiful face, and long, black hair. But, even though he wasn’t what or who she wanted, part of Ginny wished that Billy Yester had been staring at her that way, and not Phoebe. She felt like that would make her happy.  
“Is he nice?” Ginny asked.  
“I don’t know. I don’t talk to him. If Muriel saw me, she’d probably have Daisy punish me. House elves can do some nasty magic, you know, especially to punish their master’s children. They have to do it, if they’ve been ordered,” Phoebe said. “Muriel is very particular about…me and boys. Because my mother ran away and eloped, when she was just a bit older than me. She thinks I’ll grow up to be fast. She doesn’t want anything to spoil my expectations with the Malfoys.”  
Ginny couldn’t imagine a worse match for someone as gentle as Phoebe, but what good would it do Phoebe to be told again and again that Draco Malfoy was horrible? She couldn’t change Muriel’s mind.  
“Ginny, you mustn’t think badly of yourself for what happened at Hogwarts. It sounds like a dangerous place, that’s all. If you were around an open fire, and got burnt, would it be your fault?” Phoebe said. “No, not at all. You’re safe now, Ginny.”  
Phoebe hugged Ginny tightly, and even though she appreciated her support, she wasn’t sure if she believed her. Was anyone, Ginny wondered, ever safe?  



	10. Chapter 10

As July turned to August, Ginny learned the date on which she would begin classes at her new school: September 23. That, Ginny recalled, was Hermione Granger’s birthday. Harry Potter would surely get her a present, Ginny reflected glumly. The new term at Miss Rosewater’s started far later than Hogwarts.  
“May we visit with Ginny’s family before then, Aunt?” Phoebe asked sweetly one day at tea in the solarium. “Ginny may like to see her brothers off to school.”  
“She already had a holiday to Egypt with her family, she needs to turn her cares away from pleasure trips, and into an attentive frame of mind. She’s never been to a proper school, before. Hogwarts has gone quite downhill since that madman Albus Dumbledore took it over,” Muriel grumbled, and fanned herself.  
Ginny was grateful to Phoebe for the attempt, but found that she was relieved that the answer had been in the negative. She didn’t know what she would say to Harry Potter if Ron had him over for the summer again, and she didn’t particularly want to see her mother. It was strange, how despite Auntie Muriel’s nastiness, she preferred to be at Pomeroy Court before leaving for Miss Rosewater’s.  
“You know, Ginny,” Phoebe said, as Daisy made all the tea things disappear, and Muriel busied herself with Summoning supplies from her sewing basket for her afternoon embroidery, “Miss Rosewater’s is just in Cornwall. Don’t you live in Devonshire? It wouldn’t be unreasonable at all for your mother to visit you now and again, for tea, or a walk in the gardens. Cleodora Lisbon’s mother visits her all the time. They took me along to the shops with them, to pick out a birthday gift for Cleo’s brother.”  
She heard the wistfulness and longing in Phoebe’s voice that Ginny had noticed in Harry’s eyes when he watched her family around the table, at dinner-a lonely orphan observing how families work. Ginny felt for Phoebe.  
“I don’t want my mother to visit. I don’t need her, if she doesn’t want me,” she said, as the girls left the solarium for their daily walk around the garden.  
“Ginevra? Do you think your mother doesn’t want you? That can’t be true. Before you even came to see Auntie about paying for school, the two of you, she told me that you’d had a rough go of it at Hogwarts and your mother was absolutely beside herself. She only wants to give you a second chance. Doesn’t that prove she loves you?” Phoebe said.  
“A second chance at what?” Ginny said crossly. “she said I could be a secretary at the Ministry, and ‘meet a nice boy’. Muriel probably wants me to marry some loathsome prat like Draco Malfoy.”  
At this allusion to her fate, Phoebe looked concerned. Ginny had spoken too heatedly, too soon, and made Phoebe scared afresh of her inevitable marriage.  
“I mean…” Ginny began.  
“It’s all right,” Phoebe said quickly. “It doesn’t matter what sort of boy Draco is. Boys can be perfectly horrible, and then grow up into decent men, who have been shaped by good examples. And…as his wife, I’ll have influence over him, and with tenderness and patience, be able to govern his nature.”  
She was clearly reciting something Auntie Muriel had told her to believe, and saying it through gritted teeth with resolve like a soldier saying an oath. Ginny very nearly wanted to shake her, and tell her what rubbish all that rot was…but she felt she had done enough.  
She was about to suggest going to visit the hercinias, Phoebe’s favorite animal in the menagerie, when they were distracted by the rustle of shrubbery, followed by a thud, and a human exclamation of pain.  
Phoebe and Ginny hurried over to a small clearing surrounded by trees, and saw Billy Yester all in a heap on the grass, with what Ginny thrilled to recognize as a Quidditch broom laying beside him! It was a Comet, which was nothing like as impressive as Harry’s Nimbus 2000, but the mere presence of Quidditch equipment in Muriel’s rarefied world was the last thing she had expected to see, especially in the hands of Billy, whom she had been told didn’t have any magic. How, then, did he fly?  
“Oh, Billy, are you all right?” Phoebe said, instantly rushing to his side.  
“Yes, Miss,” he said, and hurriedly sat up and brushed himself off.  
“What ever were you about, Billy? Where did you get that broom?” Phoebe asked.  
“I didn’t steal it!” Billy snapped indignantly.  
“I never said you did, Billy. I only don’t want you to get hurt,” Phoebe said patiently. How Ginny wished she could be as kind and patient as her friend. Billy calmed down, and said,  
“Mum gave it to me. I begged. I can’t have a wand, but she said I could have a broom if I stayed close to the cottage, and didn’t go very high,” Billy said.  
Phoebe nodded, taking this in. “Yes, it can be dangerous to go very high. Dianthe Witherspoon’s brother, Ambrose, broke his arm from a fall, playing Quidditch.”  
“I’d love to play Quidditch,” Billy said, with the same hunger in his eyes as when he had looked at Phoebe when she and Ginny walked in the garden.  
“Why don’t you?” Ginny asked.  
“Got no one to play it with, have I? It would be different, if I could go to Hogwarts. Mum won’t let me, though. My letter came, and…” Billy shrugged, alluding silently to the ignoble fate of his Hogwarts acceptance letter.  
“Then, you’re a wizard? You can fly, and your name was down for Hogwarts, and you can do magic? But, isn’t your grandfather a Squib?” Ginny said, before she could think better of it.  
Phoebe gave her a warning glance, that she was running the risk of offending Billy.  
“Yeah, and my mum. My uncle’s a wizard, though, so it just depends. Some people in a family get magic, some people don’t,” Billy said.  
“Then, why aren’t you allowed to go to school?” Ginny asked.  
“Mum says kids at Hogwarts are nasty. They play nasty tricks on each other, and give you a hard time if your family’s not up to scratch: if you’re Muggleborn, Half-Blood, got Squibs in the family, or something like that,” Billy said.  
“That’s not true!” Ginny burst out, then she remembered hearing that Draco Malfoy had called Ron’s friend Hermione a ‘mudblood’. Maybe Billy’s mother had a point.  
“I can’t go there either, because of my father,” Phoebe said. “I’m sure you already know, Billy, from your mother and grandfather talking: my father was a Death Eater.”  
Billy absorbed the gravity of this. Ginny was prepared to follow Phoebe’s example and tell Billy that she, too, could not go to Hogwarts, although she was editing the story of the diary and the basilisk, to bits that would be easiest to tell. She was spared the final decision, because Billy did not ask her.  
He gave Phoebe a grateful smile, and said, “I’m sorry to hear that, Miss. I’m glad he’s nowhere around you, and you’re safe from him.”  
“Thank you, Billy. I hope you don’t think I have…bad blood,” Phoebe said shyly.  
“Do you think I’ve got mud blood?” Billy asked. “My dad was a Muggle.”  
“No! No, of course not!” Phoebe said. “But, Billy, don’t you want to learn any magic at all? Shouldn’t you get to choose?”  
Billy shrugged. “I just want to fly,” he said. “I don’t care about the rest.”  
Ginny thought that was pretty stupid. He didn’t want a wand? He didn’t want to learn spells? She could understand not wanting any thing to do with Potions or History of Magic, but Charms and Transfiguration were most fun. She got the feeling Defense Against the Dark Arts would have been great fun, too, with a teacher who wasn’t Gilderoy Lockhart. On the first day of school, he took up most of the class’s allotted hour autographing everyone’s textbook. Billy, she decided, was a boringly stupid boy…a stupid boy who didn’t know that she existed, didn’t ask her questions about herself or what she thought, didn’t look at her, and surely thought she was a skinny little girl.  
“We don’t need Hogwarts!” Ginny declared. This got Billy’s attention.  
He said, “Yeah! Just a big castle full of snobs, anyway. Who wants to wear a uniform, and be told what to do all day?”  
“Don’t you go to any school at all?” Ginny asked.  
“Nah. I just learn things from my grandpa, about how to look after the plants and animals, here. Mum says I might accidentally do magic around the Muggles, so I couldn’t go to school with them, either,” Billy said.  
Ginny felt sorry for him. He couldn’t be with wizards or Muggles. Maybe his mother was being a little hard about the whole issue…then she recalled that she almost killed Hermione, Penelope, and Colin. Hogwarts could be a dangerous place, as Billy’s mother feared…and she had been one of its dangers, once.  
“It’s all right,” Billy said, mistaking her sober look for one of concern for him.  
‘As if!’ Ginny thought. ‘You don’t even think I’m pretty!’  
But, remarkably, his gaze was now turned to her, not Phoebe. It was not the same hungry gaze he visited upon Phoebe whenever it was safe to do so, and he could look at her while avoiding her gaze. It was just common interest in whoever was speaking, but she found it made her feel better…like she had won something, stolen something and gotten away with it.  
“I love Quidditch. My brothers play on the Gryffindor Quidditch team at Hogwarts. They’re Beaters. And my brother Charlie was a Seeker,” Ginny said.  
Billy’s eyes lit up. “Really?” He said. “Do you play, too?”  
“I taught myself how to fly, but my brothers never had time to teach me to play Quidditch. But I read about all the matches in the paper,” Ginny said.  
“What’s your team?” Billy asked, and Phoebe was silent as Billy and Ginny talked about English Premier League Quidditch teams.

Now that the ice with Billy had been broken, he became a regular fixture of their days. When Phoebe and Ginny could get away from music lessons, embroidery, botanical drawing, tea with Muriel, or potion gardening, and Billy had a break from helping his grandfather, he was happy to show them streams and brooks in the forest where they may wade in the shallow water, or sit on comfortable rocks, and let them have turns flying on his Comet. When they were truly comfortable with each other, they even traversed the estate with him and accompanied him to lunch with his mother. She was quite young, compared to Ginny’s idea of a parent, and had a job in the Muggle world, as a cashier at a grocery store, and wore jeans and tshirts that clung girlishly to her thin, youthful frame. Her hair was thin, messy, blond, and pulled hastily into a ponytail. She looked tired around the eyes, and was usually cheerful and seemed genuinely happy to see them, but otherwise engaged a bit frantically in trying to catch up on household chores. The house was small, but Billy’s mother, who insisted they call her Laurel, seemed to pop out of several different corners at once like a funhouse illusion, vacuuming or carrying baskets of laundry. When she was stationary, she was also at work, tallying figures on a yellow legal pad, doing sums with a plastic calculator, with a pile of envelopes beside her.  
Ginny wished she could sneak the calculator away and give it to her father as a gift. But, even more remarkable than the Texas Instruments calculator was the television that had place of prominence in the sitting room. Phoebe looked almost afraid of it, at first, but Ginny reminded her,  
“Its just like I told you about, remember? Its harmless if you don’t sit too close, then its bad for your eyes.”  
They watched American translations of Japanese anime cartoons and tokusatsu action shows, talk shows where people exposed lurid secrets and sob stories, music videos, and even infomercials about innovative new models of salad bowls. Billy’s mother gave them sandwiches, sweets, and soda.  
“My father liked Muggle things. He had a motorbike,” Phoebe murmured, looking skeptically at a Jaffa cake, as if biscuits were a gateway drug to other vices.  
“That’s not what made him bad, sweetheart. We are who we choose to be,” Laurel said, placing a kind hand on Phoebe’s shoulder.  
Phoebe smiled gratefully. Ginny couldn’t help shake the feeling that Phoebe was easier to like than her. She knew that the way Billy and Laurel had rushed to reassure and comfort Phoebe was because she was motherless, and her father was a dark wizard…but she wished for the same kind of comfort and instant rapport.  
“Thank you, Miss Yester,” Phoebe said gratefully.  
“Laurel,” she reminded her, and said. “You know, your mum and I were best friends, just like you and Ginny, here. We had such fun, me and Astra! She was a sweetheart. You’re lucky you’ve got Ginny, and she’s lucky to have you. Just like sisters, just like me and Astra.”  
Laurel put a kind hand on Ginny’s shoulder and smiled at her, but in her stomach Ginny felt guilt swimming like a goldfish. Would a friend, a sister, be so jealous as she had been of Phoebe? She vowed not to be so jealous and desiring of attention, that Phoebe only got because of something so sad.  
“Did you try to tell her not to marry my father, the way Auntie Muriel did?” Phoebe asked.  
Laurel sighed. “I’m no witch, Miss Phoebe. But, I can tell you that You Know Who made a lot of people do things that they never would have done, with the Imperius Curse. If they’d given your father a trial, I could tell you for sure that wasn’t what happened to him, but I’ll always feel in my heart that it was. The Sirius Black who used to come round here hated dark magic, and loved four things more than anything: his friends, your mum, his motorbike, and rock-and-roll. He was a sweet, funny, curious sort of boy, and hot to join the war against Voldemort, not join him,” she said adamantly.  
Phoebe’s gray eyes were wide, and she said, in a strained, thin voice, “My father didn’t have a trial?” It was clear that she had never heard this, before.  
Ginny was more sorry than ever that she had been jealous. She didn’t even care when Billy rubbed Phoebe’s shoulders to comfort her.  
“Then, he could be innocent?” Phoebe said, in a small voice.  
“Love, I think you deserve to know the truth. You’re old enough. Yes, your father could’ve been Cursed into doing the things he done, but he still did them. Do you understand?” Laurel said.  
Phoebe nodded. She visibly gathered her resolve, and said, “That’s not the same as innocent.”  
“Not quite…but, its not the same as being a Death Eater, either. Its complicated, love. But, if all you get is the simple version, how can you say how you feel?” Laurel said.  
Phoebe nodded, absorbing all this information, putting it away in her heart where she stored her fear about marrying Draco Malfoy, her distress when Muriel was angry, and any other emotions she didn’t want to feel. Ginny admired her strength, but she feared that one day, Phoebe would explode.  
“Thank you for telling me the truth,” Phoebe said stoically.  
“They were crazy about each other, Astra and Sirius. And Astra was so wise about people, I never thought she could choose wrong,” Laurel said.  
From what Ginny could tell, she seemed willing to give Sirius the benefit of the doubt out of remaining loyalty to her friend’s judgment. Ginny remembered the gnashing, snarling madman on the front page of the Daily Prophet, and wasn’t sure that Laurel’s opinion stood up to other, more compelling evidence of Sirius Black’s guilt.  
“Why did Sirius’s family kick him out when he was 16?” Ginny asked, recalling her mother’s outburst at breakfast the morning they left for Bath.  
“Astra. The Blacks keep it in the family, if you know what I mean. They wanted him to marry a cousin of his, Narcissa, but he was in love with Astra, and wouldn’t budge,” Laurel answered quickly. “Muriel never got on with Walburga Black, so there was no dreaming of either of those old hags allowing the marriage, especially with Astra being sickly as she was, from the Blood Malediction. The Blacks were all about good blood, you know. So they ran away, did what they wanted, got married in a chapel in Godric’s Hollow. Pretty little town.”  
“That’s where Harry’s from!” Ginny said, before she could stop herself.  
“Harry Potter? Well, yes, James and Sirius were big friends, you know,” Laurel said offhandedly.  
Her attention was stolen by a shrill ring, and she had to run to answer her landline phone mounted to the kitchen wall. Ginny and Phoebe shared a look. They could both tell from Laurel’s casual mention of James Potter that Laurel only knew about the murders of Pettigrew and the 13 Muggles, not the Fidelius Charm and Sirius’s betrayal of the Potters.  
When dinner time neared, Laurel told Billy, “Walk the girls back up to the house. Careful.” She meant careful not to be seen.  
“We’ll say we were looking for frogs in the brook,” Ginny said.  
“Only if she asks. Its best to say nothing,” Phoebe pointed out.  
Laurel’s darkly commiserating look spoke volumes: she knew well how tyrannically suspicious Muriel could be about a young girl’s honor.  
Phoebe, Billy, and Ginny walked out of the cottage. Billy held his Comet out to Phoebe.  
“You can fly, if you want,” he said, obviously trying to make her feel better about the things his mother had revealed.  
“I don’t know, Phoebe. It looks like rain, doesn’t it?” Ginny said.  
She expected Phoebe, who was always so mild, obedient, sensible, and patient, to listen to this reasonable appeal at once. The sky was, after all, becoming furrowed with clouds, and forebodingly gray, and the breeze was wet. Phoebe mounted the broom, taking a few moments to concentrate her energy, and her dark hair caught the wind and billowed languidly around her shoulders. Ginny looked into her eyes, and saw in them an intensity that she hadn’t noticed before. Phoebe’s eyes smoldered, and there was something as forbidding about her as the dark sky above their heads.  
She took off, darting towards the wrinkled clouds. Higher than she, Ginny, or even Billy had dared, higher than she would have advised in a mild mood. But in this mood, Phoebe was daring and thoughtless of danger. Her form became smaller and smaller, a blot of white dress, black hair, and brown broom against the darkening sky.  
Ginny felt fear lance her heart as a vein of lightning flared in the far distance.  
“Billy! She has to come down! The storm!” Ginny cried.  
“What do you want me to do?!” Billy snapped.  
Ginny realized he was right. Ginny was a witch without a broom, Billy a wizard without a wand, and their friend was flying towards clouds bursting with lightning. Cool rain fell on their faces as they stood helplessly. Ginny began running to catch up to the weaving and darting trajectory of Phoebe on her broom. She could at least keep up with her, if she could not bring her down. Billy ran behind her. When they reached a meadow of tall wildflowers thrashing pitiably in the wet wind, Billy pointed and shouted,  
“Look, she’s coming down!”  
It was true, Phoebe was descending. When she descended, her hair was straggly and drenched, and her white dress was filmy and thin from wetness. Ginny was timid to approach her at first-she had gone from looking formidable to vulnerable, like a dying animal clearly communicating with its failing body that it wanted to be left alone.  
Billy had no such compunctions, and rushed over to her.  
“Phoebe! What were you thinking?” he said.  
Ginny came over, too, and saw that Phoebe was shaking, and her eyes were wet not only with rain but tears.  
“I HATE HIM!!! I HATE HIM!!” she screamed, and sobbed.  
Ginny held her friend close, embracing her wet body and getting soaked with the rain on Phoebe’s clothes. She caught only half of the words Phoebe sobbed into her shoulder, but she could make out, “Traitor” and “Murderer”. She could feel Phoebe’s shame at being the daughter of a murderer, as if they were one being sharing a soul and a heart, thoughts and emotions. Ginny had never felt so close to anyone. All her ignoble envy of Phoebe was burned away. She loved no one more, and only wanted to make everything better for her.  
“Look at me!” Ginny said sharply, putting her hands on Phoebe’s shoulders, and looking deeply into her eyes. “You are not him. He doesn’t mean anything to you. You decide who you want to be!”  
Phoebe nodded slowly, deeply, never breaking their intense gaze.  
They walked across the meadow, and when the house was in sight, Billy hung back and watched them at the edge of the trees until they safely snuck back into the house.  
“Daisy!” Ginny said, catching sight of the house elf skittering around a corner in the corridors. She stopped, and her big eyes were attentively trained on Ginny.  
“Yes, Mistress Ginevra?” Daisy asked.  
“Can you dry Miss Phoebe off, please?” Ginny said.  
She had never been around a house-elf for this long. The ones at Hogwarts did not allow themselves to be seen by students. She hoped she was being kind enough-she knew some wizards were terribly abusive to them.  
“Yes, Miss. Miss Phoebe, spin round once, please,” Daisy said. Phoebe did so, and her hair and dress were dry, and smelled laundry fresh.  
Ginny and Phoebe went back to their room, and Phoebe turned to her and said, “I can’t wait to go back to school!”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny grapples with homesickness, memories of the Chamber of Secrets, and jealousy, lashing out at Phoebe and Billy, then resolves to do better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone reading this story! I'm surprised by how it has grown over a short period of time. It was inspired by vintage British children's literature with female heroes, like the work of Frances Hodgson Burnett and Angela Brazil, and I hope I have captured the mind of a growing young woman with a lot of stormy emotions, trying to hold it all together.
> 
> For the original character, Billy Yester, I thought of young Severus Snape and his bond with Lily Evans, and wanted to mirror that sort of possessive idolatry that Snape had for Lily. 
> 
> Leave a kudo, and/or a comment, and let me know how you enjoyed the chapter! Thanks, everyone!

September 1 came and went. Ginny hoped that she would be able to visit home, and send her brothers off on the Hogwarts Express in London, but instead she received a letter in which her mother had sent along all their love, along with her’s and Ginny’s father. She read it at the wicker table in the solarium. On the other side of the glass, a steady rain fell. It was not a warm summer rain, but breathed an autumnal chill. All of it compounded one fact Ginny couldn’t escape: her brothers were going back to Hogwarts, she was not.  
“Is your family well?” Phoebe asked, looking up from her calligraphy.  
She was practicing with a quill made from a vermillion phoenix feather. The sight of the feather made the floor around Ginny seem to open up and swallow her, and send her through a dark tunnel back to the Chamber of Secrets. When she woke up, more exhausted than she had ever felt, she saw Harry, covered in blood and dirt, his green eyes shining through spots of grime on his face, and the vermilion bird perched on his shoulder.  
“Ginny?” Phoebe said.  
Ginny snapped back to attention. She had to work on that, the way the memories rose between her and the present, causing her to lose her attention on whomever was speaking to her, not hear their words clearly, and delay in forming an answer to them.  
“Everyone’s fine. Percy’s Head Boy, like Bill was. Mum’s really proud,” Ginny said.  
“Oh, how wonderful! There’s a Head Boy and Girl, at Hogwarts, isn’t there?” Phoebe asked.  
“Yes,” Ginny said.  
“We only have Head Girl. Last year, it was Florita Featherstonhaugh. She was ever so beautiful! Long blonde hair, but dark eyebrows, and eyes like violets. It was all a very pleasing combination,” Phoebe said. “Do you wish you had blonde hair? I sometimes do.”  
“I don’t think it really matters. All my family have red hair-I didn’t have much choice about it!” Ginny said.  
Phoebe laughed, and said, “I think its charming. It looks lucky!”  
Ginny wondered if Phoebe had made that up, just to say something nice. She decided it was earnest. The children at Hogwarts had shouted, ‘Weasel!’ out at her, and then laughed as she whipped her head around to see who had shouted. She wished that her brothers had told her those things about Hogwarts…it wasn’t all talking portraits and gliding ghosts, good food and Quidditch….  
“Let’s see if you’re a real redhead…under your skirt as well as on top of your head,” some leering Slytherin boys had snickered, coming closer, cornering her, both of them seeming so tall and adult, Ginny feeling more and more helpless as they came closer, until she pointed her wand and said the incantation of the jinx that Tom said to use the next time boys were mean to her. As the magic left her hand, and flowed through her wand, she had felt how dark it was, but she trusted Tom. The boys ran from her. She still remembered that with a mix a shame and triumph.  
“Ginny, there you go, staring off again. I must warn you, if you do that in Miss Flint’s class, she’ll have you translating lines from Gobbledygook to English, with no primer, until your arm goes numb, all exercise hour,” Phoebe said. “And I know what you’re going to say: that Professor Snape is worse.”  
“Well, does Miss Flint have brains and bats and rats in a jar, and make you pickle toads?” Ginny said.  
“Professor Snape is at Hogwarts, Miss Flint is at Miss Rosewater’s. One you never have to deal with again, the other you must prepare yourself for,” Phoebe said.  
Ginny knew it was the truth, but the letter had already made her feel bad, now Phoebe’s reminder was making her feel worse.  
“I don’t even want to go to a stupid girls’ school, where there’s no Quidditch, and nobody does anything after they leave it but marry posh idiots with a bunch of gold. Prepare myself? For what? To be useless?” Ginny snapped.  
She felt the dark power of the words as they left her mouth. Maybe they weren’t hexes or jinxes like the ones Tom taught her when she asked for help with mean boys, but she knew that she was lashing out to hurt Phoebe-because Billy Yester and his mother petted her, because she had beautiful clothes and was going to inherit Pomeroy Court, because she had long, shiny hair, not ginger weasel hair that mean boys made vulgar jokes about, and skin like a full moon instead of spotted with freckles, because she had given Ginny practical advice, which never sounds pleasing to the ear when one is on the verge of a sulk.  
“Actually,” Phoebe said calmly. “Florita Featherstonhaugh is training to be a Healer, at St. Mungo’s and I plan to do the same.”  
“Will the Malfoys let you?” Ginny asked.  
“I don’t have to marry Draco until I’m 25. But, I inherit the Pomeroy fortune, when I’m 20. So, I can do as I like for five whole years, and I intend to do quite a lot,” Phoebe said. “Miss Rosewater’s is a proper school. Maybe not quite like Hogwarts…but, you must try to like it, and get as much as you can out of it, so that you can do all that you intend to do, when you grow up. Languages, Herbology, Potions: I’ll need all of it when I’m a Healer, so I have to pay attention, now, won’t I?”  
“Yes,” Ginny said. “You sound just like my brother Percy! I think you two would like each other, a lot.”  
“Well, he is Head Boy, so he must be quite exemplary,” Phoebe said. “Do you think Fred or George or Ron will be Head Boy, as they get on in school?”  
“Not Fred and George-they’re always in trouble! And Ron isn’t like Percy, either,” Ginny said.  
Phoebe didn’t ask any further questions, knowing that of all her brothers, Ron was the one she had the least to say about. When Ginny thought about it, she realized that before she found Tom, she had been really surprised and hurt that Ron didn’t take more interest in her, at school. They were in the same school House, lived in the same Dormitory, ate at the same table in the Great Hall-but, he didn’t introduce her to his friends, help her find her classes, play chess or Exploding Snap with her in the Common Room. She felt as if he was guarding Harry Potter from her, as if it would be intolerably embarrassing to Ron for her to get close to Harry. That, Ginny had felt, was why she didn’t know what to say around or to Harry-Ron didn’t do anything he could have done to make it easier. If they all could have just went around as friends, it could have been different.  
‘It’s not Ron’s fault,’ she reminded herself. ‘Just because he didn’t want to talk to you, doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have talked to other people. You talked to a book, instead.’  
She had a second chance to have friends, and Ginny knew she had to shake off the memories of Hogwarts and the Chamber and focus on being a bit nicer to Phoebe, who had obviously asked her about her family to cheer her up, to bring them to life through stories since she couldn’t be at home.  
The rain continued throughout the week, summer’s dog days ignominiously giving way to the wet and damp of early autumn. Their visits to Billy and his mother, and flights on his broom, came to an unceremonious end for the holiday, since they could not go outside for days at a time. Instead, Ginny and Phoebe played hide and go seek through the many rooms and staircases of Pomeroy Court, Phoebe helped Ginny learn basic notes on the piano, they drew pictures and practiced calligraphy, and studied the languages that were taught at Miss Rosewater’s, Faerie and Gobbledygook. The language of the Faeries was considered very refined, and Gobbledygook was more practical: a lot of young women worked as tellers at Gringotts for a few years before getting married. They practiced simple Charms and Transfiguration, as well as making a few Potions in the kitchen, a practice Daisy forbid after they boiled a hole through a pot and one of their concoctions boiled over, scarring the counter.  
Ginny had never felt so united with another girl, had never had a female playmate to laugh and explore whims and fancies with. Except for tense teas and dinners with Muriel, she was having a high time until a prim seamstress in a travelling cloak called Mrs. Younghusband came round to fit Phoebe for her new school wardrobe.  
“We do a lot of exercise and take a lot of walks, at Miss Rosewater’s, that’s all. Its such a bother, really, having to have so many different sorts of clothes,” Phoebe said.  
“Quiet, Miss,” Mrs. Younghusband said, and ran a long, thin measuring tape up and down Phoebe’s body.  
New clothes flew out of her carpet bag, and fit themselves on and off Phoebe’s body where she stood on a stool, wearing a white chemise as the other new clothes flew on and off: old fashioned, girlish dresses like those of a porcelain doll’s in satin, silk, cotton, and velvet, cloaks, capelets, frock coats and pelisses, bathing costumes, tennis and cricket clothes, all of them with lovely detail and texture, in fabrics that Ginny longed to touch, that emitted pleasing, fresh smells, as if they had been soaked in rosewater or stored amongst potpourri.  
Ginny registered the guilty look on Phoebe’s face. Had she really been so low and snippy that Phoebe thought she would begrudge her a new set of school clothes? She wasn’t angry at Phoebe for having nice things…but, she hadn’t received anything from home, and she felt forgotten. If her mother wanted her to go to Miss Rosewater’s so badly, why hadn’t she made her one new dress or set of witch’s robes for the place? Would she be able to get on without being laughed at by other girls, or censured by a teacher for having no tennis clothes, no bathing costume?  
Phoebe even had prettily embroidered garment bags, a set of handkerchiefs with the monogram of her initials, and a dark wooden petty cash box with an iridescent mother of pearl panel overlaid on the top, for holding enameled hair clips, birthstone necklaces and tennis bracelets, and the Knuts and Sickels Muriel sent along for the causes the girls took collections for: the Honeyweed Home for Elderly Witches, the Oakden Orphanage for Wizarding Children.  
Ginny’s stomach dropped as she watched Mrs. Younghusband prepare the final versions of Phoebe’s new clothes with a few flourishes of her wand, and Daisy help Phoebe sort through which jewelry she was taking to school.  
“Why those beggar’s eyes? I don’t intend to send you to school naked,” Muriel snapped, coming into the room and setting eyes on Ginny. “You’ll get such things as you need, in the style I feel is appropriate for you to have, when we go up to London, to appear before the Wizengamot. Simple transfer of property, just needs witnesses.”  
A transfer of property. That was how she referred to Ginny’s parents signing her over, allowing Muriel to become her legal guardian.  
“How does that sound to you, girl?” Muriel asked.  
Ginny mimicked the dutiful voice Phoebe used on such occasions, and said, sweetly, “Very good, Aunt.”  
Muriel looked surprised, and then stared through Ginny as if sensing this was the bait for some kind of nasty trick. Although Ginny despised Muriel, she had wanted her to see that she was putting in effort to be good. She had seen the opposite: that she was bad. Ginny felt bad inside, inherently bad. She had heard the phrase Original Sin, and knew it had something to do with the Muggle church, but she didn’t quite understand. But, she felt it had something to do with her and people like her, who were meant to be bad, and could never truly seem to succeed at being good.  
“Aunt, what day will we go to London?” Ginny said.  
“Don’t worry about that sort of thing! Its not proper in a child. Go study your Faerie verbs, while I sort out Phoebe’s wardrobe. With expectations like her’s, she has to look immaculate-people at the school surely inform Narcissa Malfoy via letter how her future daughter in law is getting on,” Muriel said.  
The implication that Ginny’s behavior and future mattered less was clear. Phoebe looked at her with sad, imploring eyes, as if begging Ginny not to go.  
Ginny took pleasure in pretending that she hadn’t seen that look, and leaving anyway.  
The rain had slowed down, and Ginny had no intention of sitting down in the library and learning the Faerie language when she could be flying. She slipped out of Pomeroy Court, and walked through the wet trees, fragrant with their wet, woody scent, shuddering with round beads of raindrops cradled on the curling leaves and quill-like evergreen needles, to the cottage.  
Ginny gasped, as a black dog darted out in front of her. It was shaggy and ferocious looking, more like a black wolf than a dog. It paused, and she stilled her hammering, startled heart. Its eyes met her’s, and they were strangely knowing, and implacably familiar. When she thought about it later, she realized they were the same lake gray color as Phoebe’s.  
She watched, stock still, as the dog bounded away from the cottage, and away from her. Billy came out, his hands jammed in the pocket of a faded hooded sweatshirt.  
“Did you see that dog? It looked like a Grim!” Ginny said.  
“Oh, the dog that scares people to death? Looks like you survived,” Billy said, with a cheeky grin.  
“Ha-ha,” Ginny said, laughlessly with dry sarcasm. “I don’t actually believe in Grims, I’m just saying it looked like one. Big, and black, and wild. Maybe its rabid, or feral? Shouldn’t you and your grandpa do something about it?”  
“Me and Grandpa don’t work in the rain,” Billy said. “hey, guess what?”  
“What?” Ginny asked.  
“Sirius Black was on the telly. On the Muggles’ news. They’re saying that he’s an armed and dangerous killer,” Billy said.  
“Well, isn’t he?” Ginny said.  
“Yeah, but I mean they have to tell the Muggles he’s got a gun, so they’ll be frightened of him. Explaining that he’s a wizard would give it all away, you know? There’s a hotline to call if you see him, and a cash reward they’ll give you for information,” Billy said. “Sure wish I had something to tell them.”  
Ginny rolled her eyes. “You wish you could get a sighting of a killer so you can get money from it?” she said skeptically.  
“Sure,” Billy said. “then Mum wouldn’t have to work all the time. She could go back to Uni. She hasn’t got time, now, and she’s always so tired.”  
“Still, Sirius Black is mad. He’ll kill you on sight, probably,” Ginny said. “You’re not actually going to try and find him, to get that reward, are you?”  
Billy shook his head. “Nah. If he really was Imperius Cursed, like my mum says, they should give him a trial this time, when they catch him, and let him explain himself. But, if he comes round here, for Phoebe, then I don’t know what I’ll do.”  
“What could you do?” Ginny said skeptically. He was just a boy-14 or just turned 15, at the most.  
“Anything. Get rid of him. Like you asked me to do that dog. Like he’s an animal that shouldn’t be around here. You don’t know Phoebe like I do. She needs to be protected. She’s soft,” Billy said.  
Ginny had suspected rightly: Billy was in love with Phoebe. She found that this didn’t make her feel as jealous as she’d thought it would. He felt ‘off limits’ now that he had made his feelings known, and she no longer wanted to attract his attention.  
“You don’t have to protect her from Sirius Black. The Aurors and the Dementors will catch him. And they’ll kiss him, and he won’t be able to hurt anyone, ever again,” Ginny said.  
“She’s going to marry that Malfoy boy,” Billy said, as if this eventuality was just as bad as the prospect of her dark wizard father somehow hurting her.  
“Just run away and elope when you grow up, like her parents did,” Ginny said.  
“She would never. She doesn’t know how to keep secrets, or lie to people. But, if I could go to Hogwarts, become a proper wizard…I can’t become anything here,” Billy said.  
Ginny could feel Billy’s frustration and anguish, and she didn’t know what to do. It froze her in place, like the gaze of the dog. She didn’t have an answer. His mother very well should let him go up to Hogwarts-he had received his letter, he was a wizard, that was the place for him. But, she had learned, that summer, that not all wizards belonged at Hogwarts, and mothers didn’t always do the things that they should do. She didn’t quite know what this meant, and what else there was to do when all the things one counted on didn’t happen.  
“You can still fly,” she told Billy.  
His shoulders relaxed, with an acceptance that only held a trace of defeat. He went to get his broom and returned with the Comet, and something in a jar.  
“Look what I found,” Billy said. At first, all Ginny saw was a darting blue light flying about the jar. She looked closer, and saw a tiny, human-like figure in the heart of the blur of blue wings.  
“Is that a Cornish pixie? We had this mad Professor at Hogwarts last year who set a flock of them loose in his classroom,” Ginny said.  
Billy frowned as if that was singularly strange, and said, “I caught this one yesterday evening, in the garden. I reckoned we could use it as a Snitch.”  
Ginny hesitated. Unlike a Snitch, the pixie was alive. Would he feel pain, when they grabbed him, would he be disoriented and afraid as they chased him? She hesitated, and looked at Billy’s eyes. He was eager for her to say yes. Her brothers had never wanted her to play with them this badly, Harry Potter had never looked so long and so eagerly at her. Ginny felt wanted, and she had a suspicion that this feeling was like the brandy that adults drank at Christmas: if she had too much of it, she would get warm and silly. Billy loved Phoebe, but he was looking at her with wanting eyes now, and Ginny felt like she just wanted to say yes and make him happy.  
“Okay,” she said, and they took turns mounting Billy’s broom and swiping at the pixie as if it was a Snitch. Ginny had to grip the broom hard with her legs, engaging her abdominal muscles to help her hips and thighs to do so, and with one hand steered her broom in the veering direction of the wildly darting pixie with the other reaching out to catch it. It was difficult, at first, but she learned quickly that she had to stop trying to do anything other than following the pixie. It was guiding her, unknowingly helping her catch it. All she had to do was put her hand out for it at the right moment, and she felt the right moment when it came.  
“I got it! I got it!” Ginny cheered, when her hands closed around the pixie’s body. “That’s three catches for me, and two for you! I beat you!” She laughed delightedly. When she touched down in the meadow, and handed Billy back his broom for his turn, she saw that he did not look glad for her, or impressed.  
“So, what?” he snapped angrily, and yanked the broom away from her grasp with unnecessary roughness, glowering at her. The black dog had regarded her more calmly than the thunderous look on Billy’s face.  
Ginny had too much pride to ask him why he was angry, and anyway, she didn’t have to ask. He didn’t like her saying that she had beat him, because she was a girl. He didn’t want her to be better at sport than him, because that disrupted the order of how he saw the world: he was supposed to be better, the best, because he was a boy, she was a girl, and that was that.  
She was not only angry with Billy, she was angry at herself for allowing herself to feel that buzzing, brandy warm delight at the prospect of making him happy and having his attention.  
Ginny snatched the broom back, and broke it over her knee. She felt a wicked, electrifying victory. He wanted her to be weak, and she was strong! He wanted her to feel bad, she felt good! Good that she had taken something he loved, that she had broken the only thing he had any joy in. She looked at his face….and she didn’t feel good anymore. He no longer looked angry, but he did look shocked and lost, and looked at her as if he didn’t know her, anymore.  
Billy’s face turned red, and although he was older than her, tears fell down his face.  
“Billy…” Ginny began, and put her hand on his shoulder.  
He roughly shook it off, and ran away, towards his mother’s cottage, leaving Ginny and the broken pieces of his broom at her feet.  
‘What’s wrong with me?’ Ginny asked herself, as she walked back towards Pomeroy Court.  
She so often fell into bitter and unfair dislike of Phoebe, and she had broken Billy’s broom, the one magical instrument he was allowed in his life. Why was she so bad at making friends, and being a friend? Why was she so angry, and why did she let this anger become cruelty to the people, the only people, that she had to befriend? She wished that these parts of herself could be removed, that they could leave her the way Tom had…or, maybe he never had. Was Tom still with her, or was this all her, her original sin?  
“Ginny? Where have you been?” Phoebe asked, when she returned to Pomeroy, and Daisy was dressing them for dinner.  
“Chasing pixies,” Ginny said.  
“I hate being fitted for new things. My back is stiff, from standing so still! I really don’t like having so many things to take to school, and keep up with. And I don’t like the idea that people are writing Madam Malfoy about me, to make sure I am suitable for Draco. I wish I could just…be free. To be a bit invisible, really,” Phoebe confided.  
“You could never be invisible!” Ginny said.  
“Because of my father? The things he’s done?” Phoebe asked.  
“No…because you’re beautiful!” Ginny said.  
“Nonsense!” Phoebe said. “Florita Featherstonhaugh, she’s beautiful. And now that she’s left school, the prettiest girl after her is Amanda Brandywine. You’ll see. Auntie Muriel says I’m dour, and melancholic. No one says I’m beautiful at school.”  
Ginny realized that she wasn’t just being nice. Phoebe really gave no credit to her moonlight skin, loch eyes, and midnight black hair, and mature beauty that made Billy stare hungrily, and seethe with longing. Maybe Billy was right about one thing, and Phoebe needed to be protected: Ginny thought back to the imploring looks that Phoebe gave her, saying with her eyes, ‘Don’t leave me’, her apologetic manner, the way she always knew what sort of mood Ginny was in and tried to subtly say something to make her feel better. Phoebe felt badly about herself, or at least unsure, but for all that, she tried to be a good friend to Ginny. Ginny was determined to do better, before she did something too cruel to forgive. She thought of the broken pieces of Billy’s broom-she didn’t want to break anything important, ever again.


	12. Chapter 12

In her heart of hearts, Phoebe would have liked to be Head Girl in her last year at Miss Rosewater’s school. On Speech Day of the previous year, Florita Featherstonhaugh had stood in at a podium in the Refectory, usually reserved only for the Headmistress Ferula Rosewater, whose mother had founded the school, and delivered her last remarks to the student body.  
Her violet eyes had somehow regarded all the two hundred or so girls of Miss Rosewater’s with the intimately imploring regard of a friend with whom she was in conversation, as she told them, “You must sort out who you feel that you are inside, and never lose sight of who that person is, and what she means to do. As the Muggle writer Albert Camus said, ‘Even in the midst of winter, I have found within myself an invincible summer’.”  
Phoebe had held onto that remark, and throughout the summer, as she practiced calligraphy and watercolor painting, as she walked the grounds of Pomeroy Court and watched geese glide upon the surface of ponds, looked at the sunshine filtering green through the leaves of mulberry, cherry, apple, plum, and pear trees, and breathed in the perfume of lavender and chamomile beds, she tried to follow Florita’s charge to sort out who she was inside, and what she wanted. She wanted to be a healer, at St. Mungo’s, she had figured out. If her mother had been sent there, if Auntie Muriel and other adults who had the charge of her mother’s care in her infancy had not been so intent on secrecy about her condition, and had taken her to hospital for proper treatment, perhaps she would have survived, lived a fuller, healthier life. She wanted to learn to care for others.  
However, choosing a future profession, Phoebe realized, was only part of this ‘sorting of oneself’; that alone could not comprise the invincible summer inside one that could blaze hot, strong, and powerfully cheerful even in the midst of winter. This, she was sure, came from knowing what the right thing was, and doing it. Phoebe so wanted to do the right thing. When Billy and Ginevra asserted that she was not bad because of who her father was, she drank their reassurances down like water from a desert oasis after wandering the sands. She was determined to be good, to do good.   
When the sun returned, on a clear but slightly chilly late morning, Ginny and Phoebe were taking a walk in the mulberry orchard. Billy was a little ways off, tossing corn from a sack amongst slender young deer in a meadow.  
“Billy!” Phoebe called.   
He looked up, and hesitated, scanning for Old Mr. Yester or Muriel. Seeing neither impediment to his friendship with Muriel’s wards, he went over to the girls, who were dressed in sailor-collared dresses. Ginny was more delighted with her’s than she thought she could be, with a dress. It was white and blue, crisply tailored, more minutely constructed and understatedly refined in taste than anything her mother had ever sewed or knitted for her at home-and, it was just like Phoebe’s, which pleased her.   
Partridges pecked at the grass of the meadow, delightfully chubby and waddling. Robins gamboled, blue jays landed on the trees and pecked at the dark red fruit. The bucolic sights softened Ginny’s mood immensely from where it had been when she broke Billy’s broom-she was no longer so angry at herself or him, about the last time they had flown together.  
“Billy, its such a clear day! When do you think will be good to go flying? When will you have time?” Phoebe said.  
Ginny blanched. Billy scowled.  
Phoebe saw instantly that something was wrong.  
“What’s wrong, you two?”  
“I haven’t got a broom. I had a bad landing, broke it,” Billy said.  
“Oh, Billy! Have you got the pieces?” Phoebe asked.  
He shook his head.  
Ginny said quietly, “I have. I have them, and I can show you where, if you like.”  
“Yes, Ginny! Let’s see them!” Phoebe said, clapping her hands in eagerness.  
“I can’t go in there,” Billy said quickly.  
“Of course you can,” Phoebe said.   
“We shall say we’ve seen a mouse, and we need you to kill it,” Ginny said.  
They all silently agreed to go along with this, if stopped by Muriel and Daisy, and headed into the house. They went to Phoebe’s and Ginny’s room, or rather the girls went in while Billy hung awkwardly at the doorway, seeming put off by the lace trimmed canopies around their bed, and floral wallpaper, and other ‘girly’ effluvia like porcelain dolls, and mary jane shoes lined up at the edge of their bed on the mint green carpet.  
Ginny opened the chest at the end of the bed meant for her to pack her night-things, but she hadn’t once put on the Muggle pyjamas patterned with pictures of Jem from “Jem and the Holograms” on the fleece shirt and pants which she had brought with her, and instead wore Phoebe’s white flannel nightgowns. She pulled out the broken pieces of Billy’s broom, and looked at him. Phoebe could tell they were sharing a secret, but neither seemed willing to tell just what it was.   
Phoebe smiled with satisfaction and relief.  
“Oh, this is perfect! It shall be easy to fix!” she said, and took her wand out of its polished wood case on her bedside table.  
“Sarcio!” she cast, waving her wand over the broom. The two pieces were instantly knitted back together, and the broom was whole, once more.  
Billy smiled, and Ginny relaxed and her color returned.  
“What really happened, you two? I can stand the truth,” Phoebe said.  
“I got angry, and I broke it,” Ginny confessed. “Billy was rude, when I caught the pixie more times than him!”  
“You were rubbing my face in it, like you’re better than me!” Billy shouted.  
“So what, maybe I am better than you?!” Ginny roared, and Billy glowered, as if on the verge of saying something explosively hurtful.  
“Stop!” Phoebe said. “Both of you! Billy, Ginny, who wins a game isn’t so very important, is it? Not enough to break things that don’t belong to us, and to say unkind things to our very best friends? We must put aside what isn’t as important as being friends!”  
Billy and Ginny both gave each other one last glare, but also mutually turned their gaze to Phoebe, and, both inspirited with regard for her, settled back into themselves.  
“Now, here’s a solution,” Phoebe said, and waved her wand again, saying, “Duplico.”  
The broom duplicated itself into a perfect facsimile, lying beside the original. Billy’s eyes lit up at the sight of magic performed, and he smiled with awe at Phoebe.  
“Miss! You have to do one for yourself, too!” he said.  
“Yes, all right,” Phoebe said, cast another ‘duplico’ charm, and a third broom appeared. Billy laughed, impressed. They shared a smile, and met each other’s eyes in a lingering gaze.   
Asking either of them to apologize to the other, Phoebe realized, would have been a stretch, but at least, she figured, they were all on good terms again, and after tea, they met Billy in the meadow to fly. The pixie that he and Ginny had used to practice catching a Snitch had escaped days before, and perhaps it was just as well.

As September continued, the fruit that had not fallen and rotted had long been collected by Billy and Mr. Yester, and the leaves of the fruit and oak trees began to turn gold and shades between rust and red.   
“Your mother is coming, I’ve sent the carriage for her. Your father will be coming to the court from the Ministry. When the transfer is done, then we shall have your school things done,” Muriel said brusquely, as Ginny was laying her kippers over her toast.  
So, the day had arrived. The transfer of property. She got the feeling that Muriel wanted her to kick up some sort of fuss, so she confounded her by being stoic. Phoebe was scanning her face for emotion, too, and it felt probing and, frankly, annoying. But, after Phoebe had fixed Billy’s broom and made brooms for herself and Ginny with Charms, Ginny was more determined than ever to follow her cousin’s example of kindness, with as little resentment of it as she could muster.  
“Hrmph,” Muriel grumbled, and Ginny felt vindictively giddy that she had successfully confounded Muriel by not appearing to care that, from that day on, she would be not a Weasley, but a motherless Prewett ward.   
‘Haven’t I lived her for over a month, now? Spent my birthday here? I wear Phoebe’s clothes, and do everything she does-everything has already changed, and I’ve been living a new life, this doesn’t make things even more different. It will just be making it official,’ Ginny thought to herself, eating her fish and toast, drinking her Darjeeling tea with cream and sugar.   
But, her stomach felt heavy as Daisy dressed her and Phoebe in their wool capelets over their dresses, and matching wool berets.  
“Are you happy to see your mother, again?” Phoebe asked.  
“I don’t think we’ll see her long. We may not even get a chance to speak,” Ginny said.  
“And, if that’s the case, will you be sad?” Phoebe asked.  
“Why should I be sad?” Ginny asked.   
“You needn’t pretend, with me. You can show how much you care for your family, around me,” Phoebe said.  
‘But, perhaps not around Daisy, you idiot. Aren’t you the one who told me she reports everything to Muriel? Don’t be thick!’ Ginny wanted to rage. But, she had learned that raging at someone didn’t make for such a fun time with them later. She couldn’t say out loud that she was angry at being left at Pomeroy Court, and have Phoebe thinking that she didn’t like living with her.   
“I just don’t care. Today I’ll see my mother, so what? I don’t particularly want to see her, and I’m sure she doesn’t care one way or another if she sees me,” Ginny said.  
“I’m sorry,” Phoebe said kindly. Ginny saw so much love and empathy in her gray eyes, and softened enough to allow herself to smile at Phoebe.  
They travelled to London via Floo, through the fireplace, and the fireplace they came out the other end of was that of the Leaky Cauldron. Muriel looked around with distaste at the pub, which was a hub of wizarding life in Britain, and grabbed the girls’ hands with her gloved ones, pulling them along out the door onto Diagon Alley.   
Phoebe’s eyes widened, and she gasped. Ginny soon saw why: the windows of shops and brick walls between them were plastered in several posters, one after another, showing the same mugshot that had been on the front page of the ‘Daily Prophet’ the morning Ginny came to Pomeroy Court. Sirius Black bellowed silently in a black and white photograph over the words, ‘Have You Seen This Wizard’?  
Muriel pulled them along even harder, as if running from the madman’s face.

“That’s it! That’s the court!” Ginny said, in awe of the white Wizengamot building.   
“Yes! Quiet!” Muriel snapped.   
Ginny couldn’t help her awe at the pristinely white Palladian building, which looked like a temple from ancient days, as if someone had restored Luxor to its glory in the days of the pharaohs . Of course, Percy would point out that that architectural style hearkened back to Roman architecture, not pharaonic Egypt. Bill would patiently compromise that Egypt did, indeed, become apart of the Roman Empire at the death of Cleopatra, so they could split the difference and both be correct, in a way. For a minute, Ginny felt surrounded by their voices, as she remembered them, and imagined what they’d say, but it only left her feeling lonelier because it wasn’t real.   
Muriel pulled them along through the doors which parted for them instantly, like automatic doors at a Muggle grocer but Charmed by magic to do so. They walked down a gleaming black marble entrance hall, to a foyer with a grand fountain at its center.   
“Wait here!” Muriel all but snarled, and then went over to the receptionist’s desk. The walls were decorated with portraits of former judges on the wall, who all looked stern, with piercing eyes, but for one familiar face.  
“That’s Dumbledore!” Ginny said, pointing at the portrait of the Headmaster of Hogwarts, who had mischievously knowing blue eyes, and always wore sparkly caftans and matching pointed hats. He looked the same in the portrait, kind and forgiving, patient and unflappable, as he had when he sent Ginny for hot chocolate after Harry saved her from the Chamber.   
“Yes, I know,” Phoebe said. Ginny felt a little deflated that Phoebe had seemed so nonplussed. But, it was understandable-who didn’t know Dumbledore on sight?  
“What is he like?” Phoebe added.  
“He’s very kind…but, rather odd. I suppose because he’s so old, and knows so many things,” Ginny said.   
“Auntie says he’s mad, and always has been. They were at school together,” Phoebe said.  
“No!” Ginny said.  
Phoebe nodded. “She says underhanded things about Dumbledore whenever Mr. Doge comes round for dinner, but he ignores them. I suppose some people were just never meant to get on, and that’s Aunt and Dumbledore. If he thinks of her at all. And, maybe that’s the problem.”  
“What do you mean?” Ginny asked.  
“Maybe he never payed her the attention she felt she was owed,” Phoebe said. “That can be maddening to some people.”  
Ginny was about to reply that that sounded like Ron, when she chanced to look up and see her mother entering the foyer.  
Their eyes met, and Ginny took in the sight of Molly. She was wearing the same old, brown suit as the day they had gone to the Bath Underground Pump Room for tea, and the same green felt hat and scuffed kitten heeled black pumps. She was still plump but moved frantically, as if all the world was a kitchen with several pots boiling over. She was the same, but Ginny was not. She felt older, and colder. She wasn’t a little girl, she didn’t have it in her to run to Molly and hug her, or cry, or ask to go home. She had to show a hard, impassive face when Muriel accused her of things she hadn’t done, or snidely put down her family, or made clear that she was considered inferior to Phoebe. What could anyone ask of her, now? She’d had to learn to feel less, and show nothing.   
“Ginny!” her mother said, with cloying gladness, and soft eyes. She ran over to her, and held out her arms.  
Ginny felt the same smoldering, vindictive pleasure in denying Molly the desired response as she had confounding Muriel at breakfast. She stepped back, out of Molly’s range to hug her. Molly looked perplexed, and then hurt.  
“Ginny, dear, you look so smart! Has Auntie Muriel gotten you a new coat?” Molly asked, in a wheedling voice meant for addressing little girls.  
“Who else would have done it?” Ginny said coolly.  
“Ginevra!” Molly said warningly, at Ginny’s rude tone.  
Ginny remained stoic, and silent.  
“Hello, Madam Weasley. Its lovely to see you again,” Phoebe said.   
Molly smiled, though her eyes were sad. “Hello, dear. Its lovely to see you again, too. Are you excited to start school for the year?”  
“Yes, Ma’am,” Phoebe said dutifully.   
“Is this your third year, dear?” Molly asked.  
“Fourth, ma’am,” Phoebe said.  
Molly smiled. “I’m sure it will be a wonderful year,” she said, but her gaze rested, with sadness, on Ginny.   
Muriel trod over, wearing a tall witch’s hat, and a taffeta skirt suit with a floor trailing skirt, clutching her reticule and parasol.   
“Where’s Arthur? Late?” Muriel asked.  
“No, no, Auntie, he’s coming,” Molly asked. “How is Ginny getting on, at Pomeroy?”  
“She has all that she needs. She isn’t spoiled, but she must think herself in Faerieland, compared to where she came from,” Muriel said.  
“Auntie! None of that, when Arthur gets here!” Molly said warningly.  
Ginny looked at her in surprise. So, she didn’t agree with Muriel?   
“Yes, yes, all right. But, if he isn’t here shortly, we must simply do it another day, I must still go round for the girls’ school things. Term starts on the 23,” Muriel said.  
“Sorry I’m late! Am I late?”   
Ginny looked up. Her father was jogging over to them, wearing his Ministry robes.  
“Daddy!” Ginny cried, and ran to meet him.  
“My little Ginger Snap! Well, look at you! Have you grown? You look like a twelve year old, not a little biscuit!” Arthur said, gathering Ginny into his arms.  
Ginny giggled, and enthusiastically hugged him. She knew that both her parents were at the Wizengamot to sign her over to Muriel, but for some reason she was angrier at her mother. Maybe it was because all of this Miss Rosewater business seemed like her idea. Her mother always took the lead.   
“What do twelve year olds like for their birthday? I daresay you’d like a briefcase, or a pencil sharpener, something sensible? You wouldn’t want to stop by Fortescue’s for a sundae, or anything like that, no, you’re far too grown up,” Arthur said.  
“Daddy, my birthday was last month!” Ginny said.  
“Well, I’d still like to have a birthday sundae in honor of it-I hope its not too late, and you’re not too grown up,” Arthur said.  
“No, Daddy! Of course I want to have ice cream with you!” Ginny said.  
“Good. Now, lets get this boring old paperwork sorted. Ginny, you know that this only means that your mother and I give Auntie Muriel permission to care for you while you’re in school. You’re still our daughter. There’s no changing that,” Arthur said.  
Ginny looked at Molly. Her eyes shone with tears.  
“I know, Daddy,” Ginny said.  
“Good,” Arthur said, smiling warmly. He held out his hand to Ginny, she took her father’s hand, and everyone headed into the chambers of court.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill buoys Ginny's spirits, and catches Phoebe's attention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phoebe begins to fancy Bill, but she's only 14, so he doesn't notice her romantically, nor do they become involved, until she is about 18. That will come farther down the road. And, they are distant cousins, but so are Molly and Arthur, as the Purebloods are all quite intermingled.
> 
> Enjoy the new chapter, and let me know how you liked it, in comments, or leave a kudo.

Court proceedings were conducted in Elfish, a very formal Faerie language. Phoebe was sure that even the adults were in the same boat as her, not being able to follow more than every fifth word. It baffled her why Faerie languages and objects were considered the height of status, but nymphs and fauns, who were sorts of Faeries, were looked down on, and considered creatures. Wizards imagined that the ancient Elves and Faeries had looked more like themselves, the way Muggles painted divine beings in their own image, too. Only one Wizengamot judge presided over the signing, seeming to chant in rhythmic Elfish, and then the transfer was done: Ginny Weasley became Ginevra Prewett, ward of Muriel Prewett, and that was that.  
Arthur Weasley, Ginny’s father, held her hand as they walked out of the court building, and cheerfully asked her questions about how she was getting on at Pomeroy Court. Ginny was determined to act more mature than her age, but she was only 12-Phoebe’s stomach seized with apprehension that, in her girlish prattling, she would betray the secret of their flights with Billy. Phoebe was relieved that, as they walked to the ice cream parlor, Ginny was just describing the unicorns of the menagerie. They entered Fortescue’s, and Phoebe smelled sugar and frost.  
“None for me-I’d only hate myself later,” Molly Weasley joked self-deprecatingly, and patted her round, soft stomach.  
“Oh, go on, Molly,” Arthur said. “What’s a trip to London without a banana pudding ice cream cone?”  
“What? Banana pudding is boring! What’s the point of going to Fortescue’s if you don’t try the new flavor of the month?” Ginny piped up.  
“You’ll find when you’re our age, Ginny, that flavors of the month don’t always live up to expectations. Better to stick to what you know makes you happy,” Arthur said, with a bemused smile.  
“Hmmph!” Muriel said. “Frozen custard…just isn’t wholesome. Better to have a hot pudding.”  
Arthur pointed to the menu. “They have a plum pudding flavor, Auntie. And a raisin bread pudding with vanilla sauce flavor, as well.”  
“I can read just fine, Arthur, and order for myself, as well. I suppose you want something, too?” she added, to Phoebe, with a bark.  
‘I suppose you want…’ this or that usually implied ‘on your own head be it’, such as when Phoebe mentioned last winter that Kerenza Pencarrow had invited a few girls from class on a ski trip. Phoebe was sure that she was only invited to round out the numbers and so as not to offend Leonora Woodfolk, who was sort of Phoebe’s friend and Kerenza’s friend, though Phoebe and Kerenza themselves didn’t know each other very deeply.  
“I suppose you want to tie sticks to your feet and slide down a mountain like Marvin Miggs the Mad Muggle, rather than host the Christmas at Pomeroy Court that all the wizards around here expect? It wouldn’t be proper for you not to show your face, you’re the Heir, aren’t you? But, I suppose a schoolgirl holiday is your priority,” Muriel had said.  
Now as then, all Phoebe could do was refute that this was not so. She shook her head silently, but this drew Molly Weasley’s attention.  
“On such a warm day? You wouldn’t like an ice cream? Go on, Arthur shall pay, Auntie, it will be no trouble. We wanted to give Ginny a little birthday treat, since we couldn’t come to Bath and she couldn’t come to Devon,” Molly said. “What do you want, Phoebe? Go on, dear?”  
Muriel sighed, and amended her stance, saying, “Go on then.”  
“The peanut butter and jelly?” Phoebe said hesitantly, standing between the two sets of adults, Muriel and the Weasleys, feeling the tension between them like the close, narrow walls of a canyon. She rather liked the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that Laurel Yester made at the cottage, and figured it would be even more delightful in ice cream form.  
“I’ll have the same!” Molly said, forgetting about her midsection.  
“Well, I want the Charlotte Russe. It’s the Flavor of the Month!” Ginny said.  
Arthur laughed at Ginny’s insouciant disregard of his stance on Flavors of the Month. Molly smiled, looking at the closeness between her husband and daughter, but a hint of sadness lingered in her brown eyes that she was not apart of it. Phoebe knew how angry Ginny was at her mother, and it seemed that Molly knew it, too.  
The young ice cream server prepared their orders, scooping them out of large, deep trays, depositing them into cones.  
“I’m late. Am I late? Sorry I’m late!” someone said, much like Arthur Weasley had, upon entering the court.  
“Billy!” Molly said brightly, and Phoebe felt a jolt. What was Billy Yester doing on Diagon Alley?  
When she looked at the door, of course she didn’t see her Pomeroy Court playmate. The man entering Fortescue’s was tall and ruggedly unkempt-his long, coppery red hair was bound with a leather chord into a ponytail, and copper-gold stubble dotted his well defined jaw, framing his rosy lips. He wore a flannel shirt left unbuttoned, revealing a t-shirt that read ‘Mudhoney’, khaki cargo shorts, and Doc Marten combat boots. He looked like the MTV rock stars on the music videos that Phoebe, Ginny, and Billy clandestinely watched at the Yesters’ cottage.  
“BILL!” Ginny shrieked, and absently handed her ice cream cone to her mother as she ran across the checkered floor to Bill Weasley, her eldest brother. He laughed as he effortlessly gathered her into his arms, and spun her around. Phoebe ached, at the sight of those flannel clad arms holding Ginny safe and tight as her shiny Mary Jane shoes caught the light and gleamed. Brother and sister laughed delightedly, her amber brown eyes and his lapis blue eyes locked on each other, feasting in the sight of each other. This was Bill Weasley, the Curse Breaker that Ginny had described as a ‘big, redheaded Viking.’ He was tall, as tall as his father, but where Arthur was the sort of man who looked so thin and tall that he seemed to have grown rapidly, all at once, as the symptom of a youthful illness, Bill had a strong, solid frame.  
Phoebe felt flustered, as if she wanted to run away. Everything about him was vivid-his fair skin against his red lips against his blue eyes against his vibrantly ginger hair, the way it rested against the forest green flannel, the way small, curly, but thick copper hairs spangled his strong legs…She felt terrified, but excited, like when she mounted Billy Yester’s broom and took off into the air.  
Bill set Ginny down, and hugged his mother and father.  
Even Auntie Muriel looked glad to see him. He bent down for Muriel to kiss his forehead, but she frowned and said, “Honestly, William, what is this Muggle get-up?”  
Bill laughed, and said, “Sorry, Auntie-my dress robes are at the dry cleaners.”  
Ginny laughed. Phoebe would have, but she didn’t fancy being held upside down by Daisy’s magic. Ginny had yet to see how Muriel punished naughty girls. Phoebe hadn’t had to be punished in a long time, but she remembered every hanging upside down, every night without dinner, and for that matter every dinner of bitter, dark herbs that tasted foul and made her vomit, only for Daisy to heal her infirmity instantly with one of the potions in brown vials in the medicine pantry, the levitated buckets of cold water dumped on her head, or worst of all, being locked in the attic for hours, to repent her misdeeds.  
“Phoebe, this is Bill!” Ginny said proudly. “Bill, this is cousin Phoebe.”  
“Oh, yeah, we go way back,” Bill said.  
“We do?” she asked.  
“Don’t you remember when I’d come to Auntie’s for a week during Easter, every year when I was at Hogwarts? I used to pull you around in that little red wagon? You cried a river and shouted like a banshee for us to take it to the beach, and I pulled it across the sand for you,” Bill said, smiling.  
“William is such a good boy, to put up with that nonsense,” Muriel grumbled. “he was always a joy to have for the holidays”, she added, in such a way that seemed to draw a pointed contrast between him and his brothers. Bill was the only one she took an interest in, and Phoebe had overheard more than once than she had left Bill some sort of inheritance, and had made some introductions at Gringotts for him. But, she combed her memories for a red wagon, a beach, and a boy with blue eyes….she came up empty.

“It was no trouble, it was fun,” he said amiably.  
“It sounds as if I was happy. I wish I remembered being happy,” Phoebe said.  
Molly and Arthur exchanged a worried look. Even Ginny looked suddenly concerned. Phoebe looked at Muriel, and saw thunderous displeasure, and shrank inside, wishing she had said nothing. It was better to be quiet, she knew that, what had she done…?  
Only Bill smiled calmly, his gaze never breaking her’s, and said, “Its all right. Everyone forgets being a kid, as soon as they can.”  
“Well, I hope not, Billy!” Molly said, and Arthur and Bill laughed. The mood was restored.  
“Don’t worry, Mum. I mean, the early days. Think about it: what’s your first memory? Where does your memory really begin?” Bill said.  
Phoebe knew better than to answer, than to say anything, this time. Ginny quickly piped up, “The first thing I remember is going to King’s Cross, when you were going to school, when you were Head Boy! I wanted to go to school, too!”  
Bill smiled warmly. “I know, Gin. I wanted to take you with me in my book satchel! Tell everyone that you were my new animal familiar: a Cornish pixie!”  
Ginny giggled. Phoebe chanced a smile. She could somehow feel Bill expecting a smile from her.  
“Bill, when did you get back to London?” Ginny asked.  
“Just last night. When Mum mentioned she was coming up to see you, I figured I knew a little girl who’d like a tour of Gringott’s,” he said.  
Ginny squealed. Phoebe had never seen her so happy, and so unabashedly girlish. Around Billy Yester, she smoldered with determination to prove that she wasn’t just a little girl, but with her brother, she squealed, giggled, clapped, and pestered. She looked rosier and healthier, smaller but stronger. Phoebe wished she could be so free, and so loved.  
“Please? Can I?” Ginny asked.  
“Mind you don’t say anything to offend goblins. They can hold a grudge for centuries, and you might cost William his position,” Muriel said.  
“I’m sure Ginny was talking to me and Arthur, Auntie. We’re her parents, aren’t we?” Molly said.  
“Molly, dear, hush,” Muriel said dismissively.  
“Goblins already think wizards are lying filth-don’t want to prove them right, do I, Auntie? I said I’d be bringing my little sister around, so that’s what they’ll expect. Its all about honesty with the goblins,down to the letter,” Bill said.  
“ ‘Truth alone can temper steel,’” Phoebe said. All eyes flew to her. It was a Goblin proverb she had learned in Languages at Miss Rosewater’s.  
“Now, say it in Gobbledygook,” Bill challenged her merrily.  
Phoebe did her best, and he nodded as she spoke, then they compared their two pronunciations. She felt comfortable and familiar with him. She wished she remembered him, the way he remembered her, but the familiarity she felt with him must have lingered in her bones from the times they’d shared, and she had forgotten with the rest of her earliest childhood.  
“Not bad. You’re taking Gobbledygook up at Miss Rosewater’s, you must want to come to Gringott’s when you leave?” Bill asked.  
“Oh, no, I want to apprentice at St. Mungo’s. I just thought Gobbledygook would be a bit easier than Faerie, and I’d have more chance to use it, perhaps. One does meet Goblins, every now and then, but when has a True Faerie last been seen in England?” Phoebe said.  
“To be honest, the theory runs that Muggleborns are the descendants of Faeries. They intermarried with humans, through the ages, but when a seemingly normal Muggle turns up with magical powers, you can bet there’s a Faerie in the bloodline,” Bill said.  
“Hogwash!” Muriel said. “Muggleborns come from Squibs who ran off because no one could find a place for them. Not everyone’s as lucky as our Yesters. It’s the decent thing to do, keep Squibs on as servants of some kind, protect them from the Muggles, give them a little dignity to hold onto.”  
“Squibs can live just fine, as Muggles, learn a trade, make a living. Like our Kermit, Auntie? The accountant? His daughter Mafalda’s up at Hogwarts, so you never can tell, can you, where the magic will turn up in a family?” Molly said.  
“Be that as it may, this idea that Muggleborns come from Faeries! Whoever came out with that is away with the faeries, and tell me you don’t believe everything you read in a magazine, William,” Muriel said.  
“What is there was some kind of great experiment, to see which is true? To see if Muggleborns come from Faeries, or Squibs? To test their blood, and trace their origin?” Ginny said. “Then we’d all know, and people wouldn’t say rude things to them about where they come from, and all.”  
“Well…that’s not a bad idea, Gin. It sounds rather like the Human Genome Project. See, this group of Muggle scientists is examining mitochondrial DNA-that’s DNA we all get from our Mum and her side of the family-to try to find the origin of humanity, trace it back to the beginning, the first ancestors, and crack the code of DNA sequencing,” Bill said.  
“Go on, Billy. What’s the meaning of all that, then?” Arthur said, with undisguised eagerness.  
“See, if we can read every code that’s embedded in DNA, we can find out exactly how the body works-messages that cells send to each other about how to create proteins, hormones, enzymes, and things, and how the body takes them in from the outside, breaks them in and processes them, what exactly happens when a mutation, like cancer, occurs, all that. And they can create better medicines, to work with the body more effectively, for knowing all that. It’s a grand project, and when its done…well, who knows? It’ll make the world better, that’s for sure,” Bill said.  
“Where’s the money coming from? The money they put to things, that’s all,” Molly said, with faint disapproval.  
“Hmmph. Meanwhile, us wizards have got real problems. They won’t be curing much if there wasn’t Aurors working day and night, making sure Sirius Black doesn’t blast us all to kingdom come! We did expect you to become an Auror like your uncles, William,” Muriel said.  
“Just not for me,” Bill said, with a shrug.  
“He knew how I’d worry, that’s all. Mother was still living, then…I went with her, to the Ministry, to identify Fabian and Gideon, to make sure they had the right bodies and all…what was left of them…I saw it, I wouldn’t let her look…No, Billy wouldn’t do that to me, make me worry about that…” Molly said, staring a thousand yards beyond them all, out the window but beyond whatever she saw, there, her ice cream melting and running in creamy rivulets down her soft, plump hand. Bill put his hands over Molly’s, and coaxed her eyes to reach his. Arthur stayed respectfully still, knowing that only their son could reach her, and bring her back to life.  
“Maybe the tour of Gringott’s can wait, for another day?” Bill asked.  
“What? No! No, you’ve promised your sister. Take her and Phoebe up to the bank, they’ll love it,” she said.  
“Come on, girls,” Bill said, and they followed him to his roofless Jeep. Ginny clapped, and said, “Yay! I want to drive it! Bill, teach me? Just tell me what buttons to push, I can figure it out!”  
Bill laughed heartily. “Sorry, Gin. Even in the Muggle world, you’ve got to be a little older,” he said. “You’re almost there, aren’t you Phoebe? 14, now?”  
“Yes, Cousin William,” she said.  
“Why so formal? Muriel’s not around. Her letters don’t do her justice. I thought I got a hint that she disapproves of me, today I felt it in force!” Bill said, as he opened the door of the passenger’s side for Phoebe, then the backseat for Ginny, got in the driver’s seat, and once, everyone was settled, put the key in the ignition. The Jeep purred to life. Phoebe relished the car’s vibration. It felt alive, like the warmth and heartbeat of a hippogriff or horse. She could, as with an animal, feel its power.  
“She hates everyone! But, actually, she likes you,” Ginny said.  
The shops of Diagon Alley began to peel by them, as the Jeep began to drive over the cobbled lane.  
“Yeah, I reckon I was an unprecedentedly cute baby-only reason she puts up with me,” Bill said. “Phoebe, do you mind the radio? I’m afraid it will be a Muggle station-not enough Wizards have a car, yet, for there to be Wizard car radios. I’ll see if Dad can cook something up.”  
“Oh, he’ll love that!” Ginny said.  
“I like Muggle music. Is that a rock band, the shirt you’re wearing?” Phoebe asked.  
“Yeah! They’re from Seattle, like Nirvana. Gin, you still like Nirvana?” Bill asked.  
“I never did! I like Guns and Roses!” Ginny said.  
“I told you, you can like both,” Bill said. “Anyway, this is Mudhoney,” he added, and tapped the car radio with his wand. “Touch Me, I’m Sick” blared from the radio as Bill’s Jeep made its way to Gringott’s, and parked at the curb. 

Ginny realized that she had been completely wrong about which of her brothers would appeal to Phoebe. Granted, Phoebe hadn’t properly met Percy, yet, but she was clearly taken with Bill. Ginny was hardly surprised-who wouldn’t love Bill’s agile mind, kind and observantly compassionate manner, and be impressed with his tall, strong stature and handsome face? She had always been proud of him, for how easily he dealt with people, and moved with the ease through the world which his respect for others had rightly earned him. He led Phoebe and Ginny across the gleaming floor of Gringott’s, and conversed easily and respectfully with the Goblins, and then showed Ginny and Phoebe the tunnels in which the vaults were located. Crystals embedded in the walls and hanging from the roof smoldered phantasmagorically as they travelled in the little trolley cars. He periodically asked Phoebe if she was doing all right, and rubbed her shoulders encouragingly. Phoebe nodded vigorously, and as the trolley rolled down the tracks, she held onto it and laughed as Ginny had never heard her before, except when they were on brooms.  
“That was fun!!!” Ginny said, as they walked back to Bill’s Jeep, when the tour was over.  
“Figure you could use some fun. Last few days before school starts again are dead depressing, aren’t they?” Bill asked.  
“I don’t want to go to some frou frou girls school where they make you learn how to sew and dance. I want to go to Hogwarts! But, I ruined everything, Bill,” Ginny said.  
“Can I tell you something, Gin?” he asked, as he drove.  
Ginny nodded. “I did want to be an Auror, like Uncle Fabian, and Uncle Gideon,” Bill said. “But, it was doing Mum’s head in, the more I talked about it. And, Dad was on my side, but they weren’t seeing eye to eye, and I felt like it was all my fault. I felt awful. That last year, when I was Head Boy, it was bloody miserable, Gin. I’d worked my arse off, gotten all those O.W.L.s and gotten into N.E.W.T classes, all with one dream in mind, to be an Auror, but it was clear that the one thing I wanted was hurting Mum, bringing up bad memories of the war, and how Uncle Gideon and Uncle Fabian died.”  
“So, that’s why you decided to be a Curse Breaker?” Ginny asked.  
Bill shrugged, turning the steering wheel with one hand, and said, “It required all the same skills, and I figured I’d like travelling. Its worked out all right. I like it a lot. Doesn’t always feel as purposeful as I’d like, but I guess gold’s got to come from somewhere. And, maybe I’m going out on a limb here, but I like being part of building a bridge between wizards and Goblins. What I mean is, I guess its like the Stones said: ‘You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need’.”  
Ginny bit her lip, thoughtfully. She didn’t think she’d get one thing she needed out of Miss Rosewater’s, but she did like that Bill had told her something about himself, like she was a grown up, a friend he could confide in. She was sure that he’d only talk to Charlie this way, not Fred, George, Percy, or Ron. She appreciated that.  
“It will be all right, Ginny! It can be jolly good fun, when cricket season starts. I don’t much fancy hockey, like some girls do. And we take trips to the shore-sometimes Devon, sometimes Cornwall. And there are some nice girls there. Astoria Greengrass is the same age as you, and she’s a dear, sweet thing. And, you can always sit with me and my friends, Primrose, Fawn, and Lettice, at meals in the Refectory-I’ll introduce you to them, as soon as we arrive at school. The first day’s always a bit chaotic, with settling rooms and unpacking, but the best part is catching up with your friends,” Phoebe said.  
“And, there’s one good thing about going to a new school,” Bill said.  
“What?” Ginny asked.  
“No more Professor Snape!” Bill said.  
Ginny laughed. She felt cheered up as they arrived back at Fortescue’s.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny says goodbye to her parents, and Bill, and meets a Miss Rosewater's student.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A cameo from Tonks! I love her and Ginny's friendship-Ginny wanted Tonks to marry her brother, was worried about her during the Battle of Hogwarts, and ended up being a surrogate mother to Tonks's son, Teddy. She's like the big sister Ginny always wished for:)

The girls walked back into Fortescue’s, where Muriel was muttering animatedly about the unwholesomeness of “frozen custard”. She broke off at the sight of Phoebe and Ginny, and said,  
“Is William not going to come and say a proper goodbye?”  
“He’s busy. He has a lot of things to do at the bank. The Goblins trust him, and he speaks their language. They don’t treat every wizard like that,” Ginny said.  
Molly smiled fondly. Ginny caught her eye, and all her lightheartedness fled. Her face turned into a stony glare, and Molly looked stricken.  
“Hmph! That boy should have been an Auror. Minerva McGonagall is to blame. She should have talked him out of this Curse Breaker nonsense. That’s what a Head of House is supposed to do, guide students into the proper career. But, what can you expect? All she ever cared for was Quidditch. She coasted into teaching, after failing at a man’s sport,” Muriel gossiped.  
“Quidditch isn’t just for men! The Holyhead Harpies are all women! And Professor McGonagall is brilliant,” Ginny said. “You’re just jealous.”  
Molly’s eyes widened, and Arthur looked concerned, as if he was seeing something that he hadn’t before.  
“Jealous?! Of that homeless hag and her pretensions? Let’s get one thing straight, Ginevra: there’s no use looking back at Hogwarts with a roseate glow. When I wrote to withdraw you, no one, not your sainted Dumbledore or precious Minerva McGonagall kicked up a fuss to keep you. Don’t light any white candles at a shrine for those who don’t look back at you,” Muriel said.  
“With all due respect, Auntie, attendance at Hogwarts is at the discretion of parents and guardians. Some wizards never attend. Its up to the family, and they do nothing to force anyone’s hand. They didn’t protest out of respect for our family’s wishes, that’s all,” Arthur said. He turned to Ginny, and said, “No one can tell you how to remember Hogwarts, Ginny. The good, the bad, those memories are yours’, and its up to you what they mean. Do you understand?”  
Ginny remained silent, and nodded.  
“We love you, Ginny,” Molly added quietly, picking up that the words were, perhaps, unwanted from her. Ginny said nothing. “I have to catch the train, home. It will be full of Muggles, of course, all the way home.”  
“I expect so. Wizards only have one train,” Ginny said coldly, reminding her mother that she, Ginny, would never ride that train, the Hogwarts Express, again.  
“Well, thank you for coming, and at least trying to make it on time, Arthur. Molly, why don’t you take a room for the night at the Leaky Cauldron-I’ll pay-and travel in the morning? You know how you are when you’re in a state, you don’t want to act oddly around the Muggles,” Muriel said.  
“I can manage, Auntie, but can I have a moment alone with Ginny?” Molly asked.  
“Quickly. I have her and Phoebe’s schoolbooks to buy, and with Sirius Black on the prowl I don’t like to linger,” Muriel said.  
Muriel, Arthur, and Phoebe stayed behind as Molly and Ginny walked out of Fortescue’s and around the corner. The brick wall behind them was covered in posters of Sirius Blacks tormented face. Ginny found that she was getting used to the sight. She wondered if Laurel Yester was right, and he was under the Imperius Curse. In that case, his crimes were really Voldemort’s, just like her’s.  
“Ginny, are you happy at Pomeroy Court? I know Auntie Muriel can be difficult,” Molly said. “She’s an old woman, with a lot of money, and some influence…she doesn’t temper her opinions to what would suit others, sometimes. But, her heart really is in the right place. You should have seen her, when Uncle Fabian and Uncle Gideon died. She got Mother and me through…and when Mother went…and, I don’t know how much of this you can understand, but, when Billy was born, a lot of my relatives and people we knew weren’t exactly pleased. They thought that Arthur and I were too young, and it all happened too fast. But, Auntie Muriel took us under her wing. She fell in love with Billy, and she gave us so much help. She really is a good sort.”  
Ginny felt hopeless. Her mother would never believe that Auntie Muriel was cruel, and accused her and Phoebe of things they hadn’t done, found fault with everything and monitored their behavior. Ginny fought the urge to cry and beg for her mother’s help. It wasn’t going to come. She could tell by the look in her eyes, and the tone of her voice, that she had faith in Aunt Muriel, faith born from her own experiences. If someone tried to convince her that Draco Malfoy was a sweet, shy boy, and that Harry Potter tortured Puffskeins for fun, she would be similarly unconvinced of either report because of her own experiences.  
All she could do was survive the next night and day before she departed for Miss Rosewater’s, Ginny resolved. No one was coming to help her. She may as well be a fugitive living by her wits, like Sirius Black, and she had to be as distrustful of others, keep her feelings hidden the way Sirius Black had to hide from the Aurors. She looked at his anguished, howling face, drawing strength.  
“You and Phoebe seem like such good little friends! Do you have a good time?” Molly asked with desperate cheerfulness.  
“Phoebe is my best friend,” Ginny said.  
“Good! That’s very good! She needs friends, poor child. All of those posters around…I can tell it got to her,” Molly said. “be a good girl, at school. Stick close to Phoebe, follow her lead. Write to us.” She held her arms open for a hug. Ginny evaded her, stepping away from her reach. She felt powerful, denying her love, the way she had when she broke Billy’s broom. She expected her mother to shout at her, and scold her, as was her way. She braced herself upon a blink, but when she opened her eyes, what she saw made her feel a pang of pain and guilt. Molly looked sadder than Ginny had ever seen her, as sad as when she talked about Uncle Fabian and Uncle Gideon…but, she looked into Ginny’s eyes and seemed to understand. She definitely wasn’t angry at her.  
“Time to buy your schoolbooks! Brand new ones, this year,” Molly said, pointedly feigning brightness. She didn’t reach for Ginny’s hand as they walked back to Fortescue’s.

As they took leave of the Weasleys, Phoebe’s whole body tensed. She didn’t want to venture back out onto Diagon Alley, which was covered in posters of her father, baying like a mad dog, photographed mere hours after murdering 14 people. Her stomach felt as if it was being squeezed flat, and when Muriel and Ginny began walking, Phoebe unintentionally hesitated and lingered on the checkered marble floor.  
“You’re not getting any more ice cream!” Muriel snapped, and Phoebe hurried.  
She walked close to Ginny. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ginny’s red hair, and it reminded her of Bill’s. Her shoulders stiffened whenever they passed a wanted poster of her father, but in her head she told herself that she wasn’t really there. She was in Bill’s Jeep, in the passenger’s seat, listening to Muggle rock music. She thought of all her favorite songs from MTV at the Yester’s cottage. She wished that “Champagne Supernova” by Oasis had played when she was in Bill’s Jeep, that moment when the autumn sunshine had struck the hair on his arm and brushed the flame red color of it with a tint of gold. She wished they could return to the beach that he had talked about, and stand so close by the waves that the hair of his arm brushed her’s, as they breathed in the wind that had raced over the ocean from Africa, from France, from places far from Muriel’s warning scowl and smell of fusty perfume, age, and violet candy on her rotten teeth.  
As they walked to Flourish and Blotts, Phoebe felt Ginny nudge her, and heard someone call her name, as if it had not been the first time.  
“Fawn!” she said, gladly taking in the sight of one of her best friends running merrily over the cobblestone streets towards her.  
“I thought you didn’t want to be friends this year! You gave me a fright!” Fawn said.  
“Oh, no, not at all! I was just in my own world. Thinking of a song. How has your summer been?” Phoebe asked.  
“Oh, disappointing as ever. Mother and her dratted garden parties…” Fawn said, and Phoebe laughed.  
“Garden parties are perfectly pleasant,” Muriel said.  
“Yes, Mrs. Prewett. How do you do, Ma’am?” Fawn said dutifully.

Ginny rather liked the look of the girl called Fawn: she had jumped up and down a bit, waving her hand, as she called Phoebe’s name, and she found it took a sort of oblivious nerve to be that awkward. Fawn had light brown hair, the kind of color that might have once been blonde but changed its mind about that, to the consternation of doting adults, somewhere around age 5. It had a bit of a frizz of lighter baby hairs around her forehead, but the rest was straight and full, a messy halo that fell in two or three different directions around her shoulders. Her eyes were large and blue. Eyes like that tended to divide opinion. Ginny liked them, but someone who had a peeve against them could easily say, ‘goggle eyed’. She had a sloping, prominent nose and rosy lips that gave her, altogether, in Ginny’s opinion, an old-fashionedly beautiful, sort of Edwardian face.  
“Ginny, this is Fawn Lamplighter, my friend. Fawnie, this is my cousin, Ginevra Prewett. She’ll be at Miss Rosewater’s with us,” Phoebe said.  
Fawn reached out and lifted one of Ginny’s braided red pigtails. “Look at this hair! You look just like Anne of Green Gables! But awfully runty, and your eyes are the wrong color!”  
Ginny glared, and snatched her hair out of Fawn’s grasp.  
“Oh, have I made you angry? I didn’t mean to! Your hair is just so incredible, that’s all,” Fawn said, distressed, and her eyes became even bigger, so large it was almost comical.  
“Oh, Ginny, Fawnie meant it to you as a compliment,” Phoebe said quickly. “to compare one to the heroine of a book is the highest compliment she can bestow, trust me.”  
“I really didn’t mean anything by it,” Fawn said.  
Ginny’s face smoothed, and she looked sorry, as well. “At Hogwarts, kids would make fun of my hair,” she explained.  
“Oh, did you come from Hogwarts? There are more boys than girls, there, aren’t there?” Fawn asked.  
“No, its about even,” Ginny said.  
“Oh. Well, I don’t think I should like to go to school so far away, in a cold, drafty castle! At Miss Rosewater’s, we go to the sea for a picnic at least once, in the spring, every year,” Fawn said. “There’s no ocean anywhere around Hogwarts.”  
“There’s a lake. With a giant squid!” Ginny said.  
“Oh, how horrid!” Fawn said.  
Ginny looked at Fawn. She was like one of the sparking bits of engine or motor in her father’s shed-no matter how long she looked at it, she was sure that she would never figure out how the machine worked.  
“You should be all right now,” Fawn said consolingly. “But, girls can be awfully tricky, at Miss Ro’s. Not as bad as giant squids, mind, but tricky in their own way.”  
Muriel had, in a rare acknowledgement of the needs of young people to socialize, gone into the bookshop, so Fawn, Ginny, and Phoebe all felt they could speak freely enough.  
“What do you mean, tricky?” Ginny said.  
“Let’s just say, that you never quite know where you stand. Girls change their mind, just like that. When a girl is out, its just over for her as long as the main girl behind it all says. You don’t want to be out-as I’m afraid Leonora is,” Fawn said, with a confidential whisper.  
“What? Out with Amanda? Why?” Phoebe said. “Its not over inviting me to ski, is it?”  
“Well, it was Kerenza who did that,” Fawn pointed out.  
“Yes, but she did it for Leonora. Its over me, isn’t it?” Phoebe fretted.  
“No, you numpty! I don’t properly know, but I’ve just run into Beryl and when I mentioned Leonora, it was clear she was out, and I could just feel Amanda behind it, like a villain in a play!” Fawn said.

Ginny all but yawned. Once she became immersed in Tom’s diary, she tuned out her classmates at Hogwarts, but she was sure that this web of shifting alliances between spiteful girls was beneath her notice, boring and petty. She wandered away form Fawn and Phoebe, leaving them to sort out who was ‘in’ and ‘out’ with this all-powerful Amanda. The bell rang at the door as she walked into Flourish and Blotts. Ginny looked around. It had been a year since her last visit, when the place ( and Ginny’s mother) was all aflutter for Gilderoy Lockhart’s book signing. In a way, Sirius Black had replaced Lockhart in filling the papers with speculation and the image of his face: one was lauded, the other feared, one was renowned for his good looks, the other looked like a diabolical boogey man out of a scary story.  
The Hogwarts textbooks for various years were on display on a table. A furry book titled ‘The Monster Book of Monsters’ caught Ginny’s eye, and she reached out to stroke it. She flinched, and yelped, as it opened its pages and gnashed at her, as if to bite.  
She bumped into someone standing behind her, who then toppled onto a coffee table.  
“OY!” said the person beneath Ginny.  
“What on earth?!” said the shopkeeper, breaking away from Auntie Muriel to rush over to Ginny, who was making her way to the feet.  
“Its all right, really! Probably my fault, anyway. My dad always said I’m as graceful as a ballerina…one with a clubfoot, an eyepatch, and a drinking problem, anyway,” said a jocular female voice with a trace of a Cornish accent. Ginny turned around to see a young woman with pink hair. It was a cheerful, true bubblegum pink, blooming from the root as lustrously pink as flamingo feathers. She was smiling cheerfully, and straightening her clothes: an off the shoulder Ramones tshirt, cut-off denim shorts, fishnet stockings, and Doc Marten boots.  
Ginny laughed at her joke, and said, “Then that’s not very graceful at all!”  
“Yup. I think that’s what he was getting at,” said the pink haired girl.  
“Well, take your ballet somewhere else-I can’t sell damaged books!” the shopkeeper snapped, and waved his wand to right the table.  
“It was that book! It almost bit me!” Ginny protested, but the man was walking away. Deflated, Ginny said, “No one ever listens to me.”  
The pink haired girl smiled, and said, “I used to feel that way, when I was a little girl.”  
“I’m not a little girl, I’m 12,” Ginny protested.  
“Sorry. I mean, people don’t always listen to girls,” said the pink haired girl.  
“What did people not listen to you about?” Ginny said.  
“Well, for a start, about my name. I prefer to be called by my last name, Tonks, and you would too if your proper name was Nymphadora,” the girl griped.  
“Ginevra is pretty stupid, too. It sounds like a perfume,” Ginny said.  
Nymphadora Tonks smirked. “I beg your pardon-I’m a wild mountain tiger,” she said.  
“Erm…what?” Ginny asked.  
“Ginevra De Benci. She lived during the Italian Renaissance. Leonardo Da Vinci painted her. She wrote a poem, and that’s how it went. All that’s left of it, anyway: “I beg your pardon-I’m a wild mountain tiger.” I wouldn’t mind sharing a name with her,” Nymphadora said.  
Ginny smiled. She liked the idea of being a wild mountain tiger. It sounded like a famous Quidditch player's nickname.  
“I think my mum got it out of a romance novel serialized in Witch Weekly,” Ginny said.  
“Still beats Nymphadora. Good thing Aurors are only called by their last name, anyway. Professionalism, and all,” she said.  
Ginny perked up. “Are you an Auror?” she asked, excitedly.  
“Will be, when my training’s finished,” Nymphadora said. “I figured, why waste a natural talent for concealment? Might as well use it for good.” When Ginny looked mystified, by way of explaining she glanced at a magazine on the rack and turned herself into Celestina Warbeck. Ginny had seen the voluptuous, sienna skinned jazz singer on her mother’s album covers all her life, but now she was standing in front of her, ample bosom, sequin gown and all.  
“You’re a Metamorphmagus!” Ginny gasped.  
Celestina, who was really Nymphadora, winked, and then resumed her true form.  
“See what I mean?” she said.  
“Yeah! You’ll be able to hide in plain sight, and spy on people,” Ginny said. “That’s so cool!”  
“Being a kid is hard. But, the best part about it is growing up. Sometimes people don’t listen to women any more than they do girls…but just keep saying the same thing, and never stop believing in what you’re saying, all right?” Nymphadora said.  
Ginny didn’t quite understand, but she nodded vigorously. It seemed like wise advice. Nymphadora waved goodbye, and then turned to leave.  
“Was that you, making a fracas?” Muriel said. Ginny was perturbed to be broken away from watching Tonks leave, her pink hair bouncing around her shoulders as she walked down the street.  
“No,” Ginny said.  
“You’re lying. You’re a dishonest child,” Muriel said.  
‘No I’m not,’ Ginny thought. ‘I’m a wild mountain tiger.’  
They rejoined Phoebe, and Fawn departed, seeming slightly embarrassed when saying goodbye to Ginny. But, she seemed apologetic, which was already an improvement over the children she had met at Hogwarts.  
“So, did you sort all that out, about who’s in and who’s out?” Ginny asked.  
“Its an odd situation. I wonder what Leonora could have done! And how far Amanda’s going to take things. If a girl’s got enough influence, she can make it so no one talks to you, or everyone believes a horrible story about you,” Phoebe said.  
“Who’s this Amanda, to get to decide things like that?” Ginny said.  
“Well, she’s very beautiful, and all the teachers like her. She’ll probably be Head Girl, next year,” Phoebe said.  
“Oh, is it all about looks? Like some kind of Muggle beauty pageant?” Ginny sneered.  
“Ginny…look. I know it all sounds silly, girls ending their friendships over trifles, shutting out a girl, making it so no one will have anything to do with her…but it can make things quite difficult. You must try to get on with people. Just stay with me and Fawn, and Prim and Lettie. We’ll look after you,” Phoebe said.  
“What if I don’t like them?” Ginny said.  
“You don’t want to be alone at school, its dreadful,” Phoebe said.  
“I’ve been alone at school, before,” Ginny said.  
“And you mustn’t do that, talk about Hogwarts the way you do with me, or the way you did with Fawn, even. People will get the wrong idea, and think you’re boasting,” Phoebe said.  
“Stop it! I don’t need you telling me what to do! I’m not an idiot, I’ve been to school before…” Ginny said.  
Phoebe withdrew, and became quiet and composed. Ginny felt like a wild mountain tiger, but she didn’t feel good about it.  
“I only want to help you,” Phoebe said. “Maybe its not my place. I’m not really in a fashionable crowd, like Amanda’s. I can’t tell you how to get far, really.”  
“No, no, I don’t want to get far, or anything like that! And, of course its your place to help me out, you’re my best friend!” Ginny said. “I just can’t imagine some girl like this Amanda telling me if I’m in or out, and I don’t think you should either.”  
Ginny liked Phoebe, a lot, but it was troubling to her how easily intimidated she seemed to be sometimes: by Muriel, by girls at Miss Rosewater’s. Where did she hide that intensity that Ginny had seen when she climbed the air on her broom, higher than either Ginny or Billy had dared, pointed towards a thunderstorm? Ginny had watched a soap opera at the Yester Cottage where one of the characters had split personalities-when the other personality came out, she was unaware of it altogether. It was as if Phoebe was not even aware that she had another side, a side of her with forbidding eyes, that flew towards lightning.  
“You won’t mind it so much. Not everyone can be friends, but when you have a few good friends, everything sorts out,” Phoebe said kindly.  
Ginny smiled. She was a good sort, even if she hid her brave side. Ginny squeezed Phoebe’s hand, and they continued to walk down Diagon Alley, Muriel behind them.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Start of term at Miss Rosewater's draws nearer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long absence! Check out my other Hinny fic, "Wildflower Honey", [ here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27062218/chapters/66073735)

By the time their shopping trip was over, Ginny and Phoebe had all the books they would need for Miss Rosewater’s, as well as new cauldrons and scales for potions, and a familiar for Ginny, a blonde cat named Rhiannon with distrustful but piercing blue eyes.

“She looks mean,” Phoebe said.  
Rhiannon, as if comprehending, hissed and raised her sharp claws.  
“She is. That’s why I like her. She doesn’t take guff,” Ginny said. 

She felt privileged that Rhiannon allowed her to hold her-clearly, she considered the girl giving her yarn to play with a higher grade than lesser, yarn-less mortals. Phoebe and Ginny sat side by side in Muriel’s carriage. Muriel napped determinedly, but occasionally she woke with a start and a loud snore, and criticized their posture. Ginny was so happy to have a cat of her own. Rhiannon had a grumpy face and a threatening hiss, but when Ginny held her she was so warm and pliant, and it felt good for something to let her show it affection. She was content, for a time, as the verdant fields of the countryside flashed by the carriage windows.

When they arrived at Pomeroy Court, Billy’s eyes were fixed on the carriage as he raked oak leaves that were beginning to fall. 

When they were back in their room, Ginny said, “Why doesn’t Auntie Muriel send Billy to school? He can do magic, he’s not a Squib, or a Muggle.”

“Laurel doesn’t want that,” Phoebe said, as she brushed her long, black hair. 

“I wonder why she’s so against Hogwarts, if her brother went there,” Ginny said.

“Well, it can be dangerous, can’t it? And its so far away,” Phoebe said.

“Still…what’s going to happen to him, when he grows up?” Ginny said.

“Sometimes, people have to wait a bit to learn magic, until they’re grown up. Not everyone’s magic manifests when they’re 11. The Invisible College has a school for people just learning magic around 18,” Phoebe said. “And, if you can find a wizard to be your master, you can become an apprentice, and learn that way when you’re grown up. Maybe Billy will do that. Ginny…do you fancy Billy? I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but he’s a little too old for you, isn’t he?”

“You’re mad! Isn’t it obvious? He’s in love with you!” Ginny said. 

Phoebe laughed. “That’s absurd. He never even spoke to me until you came around. And you two constantly disagree, like Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy,” Phoebe said.

“You don’t hear how he talks about you. He worships you,” Ginny said.

Phoebe looked thoughtful, and replied, “I hope not. If that is the case, I am sure to disappoint him.”

She clicked off the light on her bedside table, and tucked the cover up over herself. Ginny pondered Phoebe’s words, and figured that she was trying to sound mature and philosophical. Ginny lay in the dark, and soon felt the effects of the lavender pills Daisy administered to both girls. She felt a vague and wistful sadness, as she slipped off to sleep. She would be going to a new school in the morning. She had been so proud to be a Hogwarts student, and nothing had turned out as it should have. Worse, she hadn’t been who she thought she was-she had never known herself to be so shy and cowed. 

All her thoughts ceased, and sleep swept over her like a gently strong wave. She dreamed, and woke up remembering that it had had something to do with Harry Potter, and Quidditch, at Hogwarts.

Ginny was awakened by Daisy’s shrill little voice, saying, “Miss Ginevra, wake up! We must get you ready for school!”

Phoebe was brushing her hair, and already smelled of rosewater, and was already dressed in the uniform of Miss Rosewater’s: a shiny cotton, peridot green dress, and a white cotton pinafore. Daisy bathed Ginny in warm water scented with rose oil, and brushed her red hair, and helped her dress in a uniform just like Phoebe’s. With a wave of her tiny elf’s hand, all of the girls’ remaining possession were packed in trunks, and with another wave, the girls watched as their luggage disappeared from their room, and resurfaced outside on the luggage rack of the waiting carriage.

“The school isn’t far; its not a long journey,” Phoebe said.

Perhaps Miss Rosewater’s was not far from Pomeroy Court, Ginny thought, but it was a world away from Hogwarts. As if sensing that she needed comfort, Rhiannon wound around Ginny’s ankles. Ginny picked her up, and held her close.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny and Phoebe journey to Miss Rosewater's

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured Muriel has Victorian sensibilities, and would instruct Daisy to prepare the girls pretty Victorian food. Saloop and brown Windsor soup were common Victorian foods.

Ginny and Phoebe boarded the carriage. As the wheels began to roll down the drive, taking her away from Pomeroy Court for the first time in months, Ginny leaned over in her seat, stuck her head out the window, just as a shower of deep copper oak leaves tumbled from one of the oaks lining the drive, and looked up as they fluttered toward the trimmed grass. She sat back down in the carriage laughing, so happy from watching the fluttering dance of the leaves.

“Look at you! You have leaves all over your hair!” Phoebe said, and finger-combed the coppery oak leaves from Ginny’s fiery hair.   
Ginny smiled as she did so, and closed her eyes as Phoebe’s fingers grazed her scalp. When Ginny opened her eyes, it was to Phoebe’s smiling face. 

“How do you feel, now that we’re leaving, and its all truly beginning?” Phoebe asked.

Ginny thought about that. On the one hand, she missed Hogwarts…but, on the other, the Hogwarts she had grown up imagining was a much kinder place than the school she actually, briefly, attended. She missed her family…but not the mother who sat cowed and sheepish when their family was laughed at and denigrated, shouted and raged at her to please Muriel, who was loathsome…Pomeroy Court was a beautiful place, in spite of her, and Ginny had enjoyed making friends of her own in Billy and Phoebe. But, Phoebe was a distant cousin, and Billy was a boy…making friends with girls her own age presented a new hurdle. She simply didn’t understand the minutiae of what went into friendships with girls, and just how to begin.

“I want to make the best of it. Will you show me what to do?” Ginny said. She figured she had nothing to hide from Phoebe.

“You will!” Phoebe said, taking Ginny’s hands and clasping them passionately. Ginny stared into Phoebe’s eyes, which reminded her of the great, gray lake at Hogwarts. “I promise, you’ll do fine at Miss Rosewater’s. You are so clever, Ginevra.”

“Me?” Ginny said, blushing. 

Phoebe was so gentle, sweet, kind, tall, and gorgeous, and was calling Ginny clever. She felt almost as flushed in the face as when Harry Potter had given her his extra set of Gilderoy Lockhart books.

“Yes! You caught on so quickly to everything I showed you this summer: the harp, the virginal, the Goblin language…who knows, you may marry a Goblin, and become a great princess of the Goblin Country-then all those naughty wretches at Hogwarts will be shamefaced for rejecting you!” Phoebe said.

Ginny made a face. “A Goblin?”

“No, no, you’re thinking of the ones Bill works with at the bank. Those are Hobgoblins-minor creatures, who live in our realm. But, true Goblins live in the realm of the Faeries. 

They make themselves known, when they choose, and they can be summoned, but that is dangerous. Sometimes, if a witch is wise and fair, they choose her to be their bride. Of course they would choose you-everyone knows Faeries love red hair!” Phoebe said.

“What are those sorts of Goblins like?” Ginny asked, interested.

“Tall, and handsome, with eyes that pierce you,” Phoebe said, and charmingly described Goblin dances, and Goblin castles, princes of ice and kings of dark forests. Ginny couldn’t help it, she imagined them all with black hair, and emerald green eyes like a fire sprinkled with Floo powder…just like Harry Potter.

“If I become a Goblin princess, you can come live with me in my castle East of the Sun and West of the Moon! You never have to get married, to anyone, unless you want to, and you can be the court musician! We’ll pay you in Faerie blessings,” Ginny said.

Phoebe kissed her seat, and said, “You charming girl! That’s a promise, isn’t it?”

“Of course!” Ginny agreed heartily. 

The drive in Muriel’s carriage to Miss Rosewater’s school was a far cry from that ride on the Hogwarts Express, when Ginny had been rejected by the girls she’d tried to befriend. She and Phoebe shared travel canteens of saloop, a sort of tea made of the roots of orchids, and Windsor soup, a sort of spiced gravy. Daisy had also packed lots of little mince meat pies, which Ginny and Phoebe shared and fed crumbs to Rhiannon, while looking at their Faerie language textbooks, and quizzing each other on verbs and conjugations. They laughed at how irregular the sentences sounded. 

“Let’s have dessert, now!” Ginny said, and pulled the spotted dick Daisy had prepared out of their wicker hamper.

Phoebe gasped dramatically, and tugged at Ginny’s shoulder.

“Ginevra! Look!” she said breathily, and pointed out the window.

Ginny grabbed her wand. If they were being beset by Highwaymen, she planned to cast a ‘Bombardo’ Charm, which she had read about in the years’ worth of textbooks her brothers left lying about the house. 

But, no. Ginny had been so caught up in laughing with Phoebe over their awkward grasp of the Faerie language, and savoring the subtle but palpable spices of Daisy’s enchanted food, that she had not been paying attention to the view out the carriage window. She saw it now, however. She both saw the ocean, and heard it. Muriel’s carriage was approaching a beach in a little cove tucked into the embrace of mighty dark cliffs. The ocean’s waves seemed to be challenging those immortal rocks with their roar, and tall spray of frothing waves. They crashed in a rushing white fury, surging forth furiously, galloping from the wide blue expanse of the ocean. It was the deepest, darkest, purest blue that Ginny had ever seen, and the sky seemed sewn to its border, rendering the horizon a perfect pane of heightened blue.  
Ginny felt the air leave her chest. Her mouth was open. She had never seen the ocean before. She met Phoebe’s eyes, and she smiled as if to say, ‘Ah, now you see, now you understand.’

The carriage continued to advance, and Ginny realized that they were not going to take a path by the beach, but were driving onto it.   
Answering her question before she asked it, Phoebe said, “We’re going to cross the causeway, to the island, there. Our school is in an old monastery, called St. Senara’s.”  
Ginny looked out at the little spit of land stretching like a cat’s tail over the water, to a small island. She could just make out the gray manor at the heart of the island. She had not expected such a remote location. She had imagined Miss Rosewater’s as a second Pomeroy Court, a place where butterflies gamboled over lavender beds, and oak leaves fell in a copper rain as summer turned to autumn. The roar of the sea seemed to grow louder, to be made of many voices, to be the voice of a great monster. Could she live surrounded by that roar.

“Don’t be afraid,” Phoebe said sweetly, and reached for her hand.  
Ginny snapped, “I’m not afraid! I’m a Gryffindor!”

The look in Phoebe’s eyes, and the way Ginny felt when the words were out of her mouth, were enough to remind her that she had been a Gryffindor…but, that was over now. She was looking at her new school, and her new life. 


End file.
